RUSSIAN 
LITERATURE 

BY 

P. KROPOTKIN 




NEW YORK 

McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 

MCMV 



USHARYof 0ON3RESS 
Two Copies tteceiy«d 

APR 19 iyu5 



Copyright, igoS, hy 

McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 

Published, April, igoS, N 



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PREFACE 1 1 J 

THIS book originated in a series of eight lectures on 
Russian Literature during the Nineteenth Century 
which I deHvered In March, 1901, at the Lowell 
Institute, in Boston. 

In accepting the Invitation to deliver this course, I fully 
realised the difficulties which stood in my way. It is by no 
means an easy task to speak or to write about the literature of 
a country, when this literature is hardly known to the audi- 
ence or to the readers. Only three or four Russian writers 
have been properly and at all completely translated Into Eng- 
lish; so that very often I had to speak about a poem or a 
novel, when It could have been readily characterised by 
simply reading a passage or two from It. 

However, if the difficulties were great, the subject was.^ 
well worth an effort. Russian literature is a rich mine of ' 
original poetic thought. It has a freshness and youth fulness 
which Is not found to the same extent In older literatures. It 
has, moreover, a sincerity and simplicity of expression which 
render it all the more attractive to the mind that has grown 
sick of literary artificiality. And it has this distinctive feature, 
that It brings within the domain of Art — the poem, the novel, 
the drama — nearly all those questions, social and political, 
which In Western Europe and America, at least in our 
present generation, are discussed chiefly in the political 
writings of the day, but seldom in literature. 

In no other country does literature occupy so influential a 
position as It does in Russia. Nowhere else does it exercise so 
profound and so direct an influence upon the intellectual 
development of the younger generation. There are novels of 
Turgueneff, and even of the less-known writers, which have 



vl PREFACE 

been real stepping stones in the development of Russian 
youth within the last fifty years. 

The reason why literature exercises such an influence In 
Russia is self-evident. There is no open political life, and with 
the exception of a few years at the time of the abolition of 
serfdom, the Russian people have never been called upon to 
take an active part In the framing of their country's institu- 
tions. 

The consequence has been that the best minds of the coun- 
try have chosen the poem, the novel, the satire, or liter- 
ary criticism as the medium for expressing their aspirations, 
their conceptions of national life, or their ideals. It Is not to 
blue-books, or to newspaper leaders, but to Its works of Art 
that one must go in Russia in order to understand the politi- 
cal, economical, and social Ideals of the country — the aspira- 
tions of the history-making portions of Russian society. 

As it would have been impossible to exhaust so wide a 
subject as Russian Literature within the limits of this book, 
1 have concentrated my chief attention upon the modern 
literature. The early writers, down to Pushkin and Gogol — 
the founders of the modern literature — are dealt with In a 
short Introductory sketch. The most representative writers In 
poetry, the novel, the drama, political literature, and art 
criticism, are considered next, and round them I have grouped 
the less prominent writers, of whom the most Important are 
mentioned In short notes. I am fully aware that every one 
of the latter presents something Individual and well worth 
knowing; and that some of the less-known authors have even 
succeeded occasionally In better representing a given current 
of thought than their more famous colleagues ; but in a book 
which Is Intended to give only a broad, general idea of the 
subject, the plan I have pursued was necessary. 

Literary criticism has always been well represented In 
Russia, and the views taken In this book must needs bear 
traces of the work of our great critics — Byelinskly, Tcherny- 
shevskiy, Dobroluboff, and Pisareff, and their modern fol- 
lowers, Mikhallovsky, Arsenieff, Skabltchevsky, Vengueroff, 
and others. For biographical data concerning contemporary 
writers I am Indebted to the excellent work on modern 
Russian literature by the last named author, and to the 



PREFACE vii 

eighty volumes of the admirable Russian Encyclopadic Dic- 
tionary. 

I take this opportunity to express my hearty thanks to 
my old friend, Mr. Richard Heath, who was kind enough 
to read over all this book, both in manuscript and in proof. 

Bromley, Kent, 
January, 1 905. 



CONTENTS 



Preface 



Chapter I : Introduction i 

The Russian Language — Early folk literature: Folklore — 
Songs — Sagas — Lay of Igors Raid — Annals — Mongolian 
Invasion; its consequences — Correspondence between John 
IV. and Kurbskiy — Religious splitting — Avvakum's Me- 
moirs — The eighteenth century — Peter I. and his con- 
temporaries : Tretiakovskiy — Lomonosoff — Sumarokoff — 
The times of Catherine II: Derzhavin — Von Wizin — The 
Freemasons: Novikoff — Radischeif — Early nineteenth cen- 
tury: Karamzin and Zhukovskiy — ^The Decembrists — 
Ryleeff. 

Chapter II: Pushkin; Lermontoff . . -39 

Pushkin — Beauty of form — Pushkin and Schiller — His 
youth; his exile; his later career and death — Fairy 
tales: Ruslan and Ludmila — His lyrics — " Byronism " — 
Drama — Evgheniy Onyeghin — Lermontoff — Pushkin or 
Lermontoff? His life — ^The Caucasus — Poetry of nature — 
Influence of Shelley — The Demon — Mtsyri — Love of Free- 
dom — Pushkin and Lermontoif as prose-writers — Other 
poets and novelists of the same epoch. 

Chapter III: Gogol 67 

Little Russia — Nights on a Farm near Dikanka and Mir- 
gorod — Village life and humour — How Ivan Ivanovitch 
quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforytch — Historical novel: Taras 
Bulba — The Cloak — Drama: The Inspector-General — 
Its influence — Dead Souls: Main types — Realism in the 
Russian novel. 

Chapter IV: Turgueneff; Tolstoy ... 88 

Turgueneff — The Character of his art — A Sportsman's 
Note-book — Pessimism in his early novels — His series of 
novels representing the leading types of Society: Rudin — 



CONTENTS 

Lavretskiy — Helen and Insaroff — Bazaroff — Why Fathers 
and Sons was misunderstood — Hamlet and Don Quixote — 
Virgin Soil — Movement towards the people — Tolstoy — 
Childhood and Boyhood — During and after the Crimean 
War — Youth: in search of an ideal — Small stories — The 
Cossacks — Educational work — War and Peace — Anna 
Karenina — Religious crisis — His interpretation of the Chris- 
tian teaching — Main points of Christian ethics — Latest 
works of art — Kreutzer Sonata — Resurrection, 

Chapter V: Gontcharoff; Dostoyevskiy; Nek- 
rAsoff 151 

Gontcharoff — Oblomoff — ^The Russian malady of Oblo- 
moffdom — Is it exclusively Russian? The Precipice — Dos- 
toyevskiy — His first novel — General character of his work — 
^Memoirs from a Dead House — Down-trodden and 
Offended — Crime and Punishment — The Brothers Kara- 
mazoff — NekrasofiF — Discussions about his talent — His love 
of the people — Apotheosis of Woman — Other prose- 
writers of the same epoch — Serghei Aksakof? — Dal — Ivan 
PanaefE — Hvoschinskaya (V. Krestovskiy-pseudonyme) — 
Poets of the same epoch — KoltsofE — Nikitin — Plescheeff — 
The admirers of pure art: TutchefE; A. Maykoff; 
Scherbina; A. Fet — ^A. K. Tolstoy — ^The Translators. 

Chapter VI: The Drama 191 

Its origin — ^The Tsars Alexel and Peter I. — Sumarokof! — 
Pseudo-classical tragedies: Knyazhnin; OzerofiE — First 
comedies — ^The first years of the nineteenth century — Gri- 
boyedoflF — ^The Moscow stage in the fifties — Ostrovskiy: 
his first dramas — The Thunderstorm — Ostrovskiy 's later 
dramas — Historical dramas: A. K. Tolstoy — Other dra- 
matic writers. 

Chapter VII : Folk-Novelists . . . .221 

Their position in Russian literature — The early folk- 
novelists — Grigirovitch — Marko Vovtchok — Danilevskiy — 
Intermediate period: Kokoreff; Pisemskiy; Potyekhin — 
Ethnographical researches — ^The realistic school: Pomya- 
lovskiy — RyeshetnikofE — Levitoff — Gleb Uspenskiy — Zlato- 
vratskiy and other folk-novelists : Naumoff — Zasodimskiy — 
SalofE — Nefedoff — Modern realism: Maxim Gorkiy. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter VIII: Political Literature; Satire; 

Art-Criticism; Contemporary Novelists . 263 
Political Literature — Difficulties of censorship — The 
circles: Westerners and Slavophiles — Political literature 
abroad : Herzen — Ogaryoff — Bakunin — Lavroff — Stepniak 
— The Contemporary and Tchernyshevskiy — Satire: Sche- 
drin (Saltykoff) — Art-Criticism — Its importance in Rus- 
sia — Byelinskiy — Dobroluboff — Pisareff — Mihailovskiy — 
Tolstoy's What is Artf Contemporary Novelists: 
Oertel — Korolenko — Present drift of literature — Merez- 
hovskiy — Boborykin — Potapenko — ^Tchehoff. 

Bibliographical Notes ...... 319 

Index 321 



i 



PART I 

Introduction: The Russian Language 



ft 



CHAPTER I _ 

THE Russian Language — Early folk literature: Folk-lore — 
Songs — Sagas — Lay of Igors Raid — Annals — ^The Mongol 
Invasion; its consequences — Correspondence between John IV. 
and Kurbiskiy — Split in the Church — Awakum's Memoirs — 
The eighteenth century: Peter I. and his contemporaries — Tre- 
tiakovsky — Lomonosoff — Sumarokoff — The times of Catherine 
II. — Derzhavin — Von Wizin — ^The Freemasons: Novikoff; 
Radischeff — Early nineteenth century: Karamzin and Zhukov- 
skiy — The Decembrists — Ryleeif. 



o 



^NE of the last messages which Turgueneff addressed 
to Russian writers from his death-bed was to 
Implore them to keep In Its purity " that pre- 
cious Inheritance of ours — the Russian language." He 
who knew In perfection most of the languages spoken In 
Western Europe had the highest opinion of Russian as 
an Instrument for the expression of all possible shades of 
thought and feeling, and he had shown In his writings 
what depth and force of expression, and what melodiousness 
of prose, could be obtained In his native tongue. In his 
high appreciation of Russian, Turgueneff — as will often 
be seen In these pages — was perfectly right. The richness 
of the Russian language In words Is astounding: many a 
word which stands alone for the expression of a given idea 
In the languages of Western Europe has In Russian three or 
four equivalents for the rendering of the various shades of 
the same Idea. It Is especially rich for rendering various 
shades of human feeling — tenderness and love, sadness and 
merriment — as also various degrees of the same action. Its 
plIablHty for translation Is such that In no other language do 
we find an equal number of most beautiful, correct, and truly 
poetical renderings of foreign authors. Poets of the most 
diverse character, such as Heine and Beranger, Longfellow 



4 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

and Schiller, Shelley and Goethe — to say nothing of that 
favourite with Russian translators, Shakespeare — are equally 
well turned Into Russian. The sarcasm of Voltaire, the rollick- 
ing humour of Dickens, the good-natured laughter of Cer- 
vantes are rendered with equal ease. Moreover, owing to the 
musical character of the Russian tongue. It is wonderfully 
adapted for rendering poetry In the same metres as those of 
the original. Longfellow's " Hiawatha " (In two different 
translations, both admirable), Heine's capricious lyrics, 
Schiller's ballads, the melodious folk-songs of different nation- 
alities, and Beranger's playful chansonnettes, read In Russian 
with exactly the same rhythms as in the originals. The des- 
perate vagueness of German metaphysics Is quite as much at 
home In Russian as the matter-of-fact style of the eighteenth 
century philosophers ; and the short, concrete and expressive, 
terse sentences of the best English writers offer no difficulty 
for the Russian translator. 

Together with Czech and Polish, Moravian, Serbian and 
Bulgarian, as also several minor tongues, the Russian belongs 
to the great Slavonian family of languages which, in its 
turn — together with the Scandinavo-Saxon and the Latin 
families, as also the Lithuanian, the Persian, the Armenian, 
the Georgian — ^belongs to the great Indo-European, or 
Aryan branch. Some day — soon, let us hope: the sooner 
the better — the treasures of both the folk-songs possessed 
by the South Slavonians and the many centuries old litera- 
ture of the Czechs and the Poles will be revealed to West- 
ern readers. But in this work I have to concern myself 
only with the literature of the Eastern, i. e,, the Russian, 
branch of the great Slavonian family; and in this branch I 
shall have to omit both the South-Russian or Ukrainian litera- 
ture and the White or West- Russian folk-lore and songs. I 
shall treat only of the literature of the Great- Russians; or, 
simply, the Russians. Of all the Slavonian languages theirs 
is the most widely spoken. It is the language of Pushkin and 
Lermontoff, Turgueneff and Tolstoy. 

Like all other languages, the Russian has adopted many 
foreign words: Scandinavian, Turkish, Mongolian and, 
lately, Greek and Latin. But notwithstanding the assimila- 
tion of many nations and stems of the Ural-Altayan or 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 5 

Turanian stock which has been accomplished In the course 
of ages by the Russian nation, her language has remained 
remarkably pure. It Is striking indeed to see how the trans- 
lation of the Bible which was made In the ninth century Into 
die language currently spoken by the Moravians and the 
South Slavonians remains comprehensible, down to the 
present time, to the average Russian. Grammatical forms 
and the construction of sentences are indeed quite different 
now. But the roots, as well as a very considerable number 
of words, remain the same as those which were used in 
current talk a thousand years ago. 

It must be said that the South-Slavonian had attained a 
high degree of perfection, even at that early time. Very 
few words of the Gospels had to be rendered in Greek — 
and these are names of things unknown to the South Slavon- 
ians; while for none of the abstract words, and for none of 
tlie poetical images of the original, had the translators any 
difficulty in finding the proper expressions. Some of the 
words they used are, moreover, of a remarkable beauty, and 
this beauty has not been lost even to-day. Everyone remem- 
bers, for instance, the difficulty which the learned Dr. Faust, 
in Goethe's immortal tragedy, found in rendering the 
sentence: "In the beginning was the Word." "Word," 
in modern German, seemed to Dr. Faust to be too shallow 
an expression for the idea of " the Word being God." In 
the old Slavonian translation we have " Slovo," which also 
means " Word," but has at the same time, even for the 
modern Russian, a far deeper meaning than that of das 
Wort. In old Slavonian " Slovo " included also the mean- 
ing of " Intellect " — German Vernunft; and consequently it 
conveyed to the reader an idea which was deep enough not to 
clash with the second part of the Biblical sentence. 

I wish that I could give here an idea of the beauty of the 
structure of the Russian language, such as it was spoken early 
in the eleventh century In North Russia, a sample of which 
has been preserved in the sermon of a Novgorod bishop 
( 1035 ) . The short sentences of this sermon, calculated to be 
understood by a newly christened flock, are really beautiful; 
while the bishop's conceptions of Christianity, utterly devoid 
of Byzantine gnosticism, are most characteristic of the 



6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

manner In which Christianity was and Is still understood by 
the masses of the Russian folk. 

At the present time, the Russian language (the Great- 
Russian) Is remarkably free from patois. Little-Russian, or 
Ukrainian,* which is spoken by nearly 15,000,000 people, 
and has Its own literature — folk-lore and modern — Is 
undoubtedly a separate language. In the same sense as 
Norwegian and Danish are separate from Swedish, or as 
Portuguese and Catalonlan are separate from Castlllan or 
Spanish. White-Russian, which Is spoken In some provinces 
of Western Russia, has also the characteristics of a separate 
branch of the Russian, rather than those of a local dialect. 
As to Great-Russian, or Russian, It Is spoken by a compact 
body of nearly eighty million people In Northern, Central, 
Eastern, and Southern Russia, as also in Northern Caucasia 
and Siberia. Its pronunciation slightly varies In different 
parts of this large territory; nevertheless the literary 
language of Pushkin, Gogol, Turgueneff, and Tolstoy Is 
understood by all this enormous mass of people. The Rus- 
sian classics circulate In the villages by millions of copies, and 
when, a few years ago, the literary property In Pushkin's 
works came to an end (fifty years after his death), complete 
editions of his works — ^some of them In ten volumes — were 
circulated by the hundred-thousand, at the almost incredibly 
low price of three shillings (75 cents) the ten volumes; while 
millions of copies of his separate poems and tales are sold 
now by thousands of ambulant booksellers In the villages, at 
the price of from one to three farthings each. Even the 
complete works of Gogol, Turgueneff, and Goncharoff, In 
twelve-volume editions, have sometimes sold to the number 
of 200,000 sets each. In the course of a single year. The 
advantages of this intellectual unity of the nation are self- 
evident. 

*Pronounce Ook-ra-ee-nian. 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 7 

EARLY FOLK-LITERATURE : FOLK-LORE SONGS SAGAS 

The early folk-literature of Russia, part of which is still 
preserved in the memories of the people alone, is wonder- 
fully rich and full of the deepest interest. No nation of 
Western Europe possesses such an astonishing wealth of 
traditions, tales, and lyric folk-songs — some of them of the 
greatest beauty — and such a rich cycle of archaic epic songs, 
as Russia does. Of course, all European nations have had, 
once upon a time, an equally rich folk-literature; but the 
great bulk of It was lost before scientific explorers had under- 
stood its value or begun to collect it. In Russia, this treasure 
was preserved in remote villages untouched by civilisation, 
especially In the region round Lake Onega; and when the 
folk-lorlsts began to collect It, in the eighteenth and nine- 
teenth centuries, they found in Northern Russia and in 
Little Russia old bards still going about the villages with 
their primitive string instruments, and reciting poems of a 
very ancient origin. 

Besides, a variety of very old songs are sung still by the 
village folk themselves. Every annual holiday — Christmas, 
Easter, Midsummer Day — has its own cycle of songs, which 
have been preserved, with their melodies, even from pagan 
times. At each marriage, which Is accompanied by a very 
complicated ceremonial, and at each burial, similarly old 
songs are sung by the peasant women. Many of them have, 
of course, deteriorated In the course of ages ; of many others 
mere fragments have survived; but, mindful of the popular 
saying that " never a word must be cast out of a song," the 
women In many localities continue to sing the most antique 
songs In full, even though the meaning of many of the words 
has already been lost. 

There are, moreover, the tales. Many of them are certainly 
the same as we find among all nations of Aryan origin : one 
may read them In Grimm's collection of fairy tales; but 
others came also from the Mongols and the Turks; while 
some of them seem to have a purely Russian origin. And next 
come the songs recited by wandering singers — the Kaliki — 
also very ancient. They are entirely borrowed from the 
East, and deal with heroes and heroines of other nationalities 



8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

than the Russian, such as " Akib, the Assyrian King/* the 
beautiful Helen, Alexander the Great, or Rustem of Persia. 
The Interest which these Russian versions of Eastern legends 
and tales offer to the explorer of folk-lore and mythology 
is self-evident. 

Finally, there are the epic songs: the byliny, which cor- 
respond to the Icelandic sagas. Even at the present day they 
are sung In the villages of Northern Russia by special 
bards who accompany themselves with a special Instrument, 
also of very ancient origin. The old singer utters in a 
sort of recitative one or two sentences, accompanying him- 
self with his Instrument; then follows a melody, into which 
each individual singer Introduces modulations of his own, 
before he resumes next the quiet recitative of the epic narra- 
tive. Unfortunately, these old bards are rapidly disappear- 
ing; but some five-and-thlrty years ago a few of them were 
still alive in the province of Olonets, to the north-east of 
St. Petersburg, and I once heard one of them, whom A. 
Hllferding had brought to the capital, and who sang before 
the Russian Geographical Society his wonderful ballads. The 
collecting of the epic songs was happily begun in good time 
— during the eighteenth century — and it has been eagerly 
continued by specialists, so that Russia possesses now perhaps 
the richest collection of such songs — about four hundred — 
which has been saved from oblivion. 

The heroes of the Russian epic songs are knights-errant, 
whom popular tradition unites round the table of the Kieff 
Prince, Vladimir the Fair Sun. Endowed with supernatural 
physical force, these knights, Ilyia of Murom, Dobrynia 
Nikitlch, Nicholas the Villager, Alexei the Priest's Son, and 
so on, are represented going about Russia, clearing the coun- 
try of giants, who infested the land, or of Mongols and 
Turks. Or else they go to distant lands to fetch a bride for 
the chief of their schola, the Prince Vladimir, or for them- 
selves; and they meet, of course, on their journeys, with all 
sorts of adventures, in which witchcraft plays an important 
part. Each of the heroes of these sagas has his own indi- 
viduality. For instance, Ilyia, the Peasant's Son, does not 
care for gold or riches: he fights only to clear the land 
from giants and strangers. Nicholas the Villager is the per- 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 9 

sonlficatlon of the force with which the tiller of the soil is 
endowed: nobody can pull out of the ground his heavy 
plough, while he himself lifts it with one hand and throws it 
above the clouds; Dobrynia embodies some of the features 
of the dragon-fighters, to whom belongs St. George; Sadko 
is the personification of the rich merchant, and Tchurilo of 
the refined, handsome, urbane man with whom all women 
fall In love. 

At the same time. In each of these heroes, there are doubt- 
less mythological features. Consequently, the early Russian 
explorers of the byliny, who worked under the Influence of 
Grimm, endeavoured to explain them as fragments of an 
old Slavonian mythology, In which the forces of Nature are 
personified in heroes. In Iliya they found the features of the 
God of the Thunders. Dobrynia the Dragon-Killer was 
supposed to represent the sun In its passive power — the 
active powers of fighting being left to Iliya. Sadko was the 
personification of navigation, and the Sea-God whom he 
deals with was Neptune. Tchurilo was taken as a representa- 
tive of the demoniacal element. And so on. Such was, at 
least, the Interpretation put upon the sagas by the early 
explorers. 

V. V. StAsoff, in his Origin of the Russian Byliny 
(1868), entirely upset this theory. With a considerable 
wealth of argument he proved that these epic songs are not 
fragments of a Slavonic mythology, but represent borrowings 
from Eastern tales. Iliya is the Rustem of the Iranian 
legends, placed In Russian surroundings. Dobrynia Is the 
Krishna of Indian folk-lore; Sadko Is the merchant of the 
Eastern tales, as also of a Norman tale. All the Russian epic 
heroes have an Eastern origin. Other explorers went still 
further than Stasoff. They saw In the heroes of Russian epics 
insignificant men who had lived In the fourteenth and fif- 
teenth centuries (Iliya of Murom Is really mentioned as a 
historic person In a Scandinavian chronicle), to whom the 
exploits of Eastern heroes, borrowed from Eastern tales, 
were attributed. Consequently, the heroes of the byliny could 
have had nothing to do with the times of Vladimir, and still 
less with the earlier Slavonic mythology. 

The gradual evolution and migration of myths, which are 



lo RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

successively fastened upon new and local persons as they 
reach new countries, may perhaps aid to explain these con- 
tradictions. That there are mythological features in the 
heroes of the Russian epics may be taken as certain; only, 
the mythology they belong to is not Slavonian but Aryan al- 
together. Out of these mythological representations of the 
forces of Nature, human heroes were gradually evolved in 
the East. 

At a later epoch when these Eastern traditions began 
to spread in Russia, the exploits of their heroes were attrib- 
uted to Russian men, who were made to act in Russian 
surroundings. Russian folk-lore assimilated them; and, while 
It retained their deepest semi-mythological features and 
leading traits of character, it endowed, at the same time, the 
Iranian Rustem, the Indian dragon-killer, the Eastern mer- 
chant, and so on, with new features, purely Russian. It 
divested them, so to say, of the garb which had been put 
upon their mystical substances when they were first appro- 
priated and humanised by the Iranians and the Indians, and 
dressed them now In a Russian garb — just as in the tales 
about Alexander the Great, which I heard In Transbaikalia, 
the Greek hero Is endowed with Buryate features and his 
exploits are located on such and such a Transbaikallan moun- 
tain. However, Russian folk-lore did not simply change the 
dress of the Persian prince, Rustem, Into that of a Russian 
peasant, Iliya. The Russian sagas, m their style, in the poet- 
ical Images they resort to, and partly In the characteristics of 
their heroes, were new creations. Their heroes are thoroughly 
Russian: for Instance, they never seek for blood-vengeance, 
as Scandinavian heroes would do; their actions, especially 
those of " the elder heroes,'* are not dictated by personal alms, 
but are imbued with a communal spirit, which Is characteris- 
tic of Russian popular life. They are as much Russians as 
Rustem was Persian. As to the time of composition of these 
sagas. It is generally believed that they date from the tenth, 
eleventh, and twelfth centuries, but that they received their 
definite shape — the one that has reached us — In the four- 
teenth century. Since that time they have undergone but little 
alteration. 

In these sagas Russia has thus a precious national Inherit- 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE ii 

ance of a rare poetical beauty, which has been fully 
appreciated in England by Ralston, and in France by the 
historian Rambaud. 



" LAY OF IGOR's RAID " 



And yet Russia has not her Iliad. There has been no 
poet to inspire himself with the expolits of Illya, Dobrynia, 
Sadko, Tchurilo, and the others, and to make out of them 
a poem similar to the epics of Homer, or the " Kalevala " of 
the Finns. This has been done with only one cycle of tradi- 
tions: in the poem, The Lay of Igor*s Raid {Slovo o Polku 
Igor eve). 

This poem was composed at the end of the twelfth cen- 
tury, or early in the thirteenth (its full manuscript, destroyed 
during the conflagration of Moscow in 1812, dated from the 
fourteenth or the fifteenth century) . It was undoubtedly the 
work of one author, and for Its beauty and poetical form it 
stands by the side of the Song of the Nibelungs, or the Song 
of Roland. It relates a real fact that did happen in 11 85. 
Igor, a prince of Kieff, starts with his druzhina (schola) of 
warriors to make a raid on the PolovtsI, who occupied the 
prairies of South-eastern Russia, and continually raided the 
Russian villages. All sorts of bad omens are seen on the 
march through the prairies — the sun Is darkened and casts 
its shadow on the band of Russian warriors ; the animals give 
different warnings; but Igor exclaims: "Brothers and 
friends : Better to fall dead than be prisoners of the PolovtsI ! 
Let us march to the blue waters of the Don. Let us break our 
lances against those of the PolovtsI. And either I leave there 
my head, or I will drink the water of the Don from my 
golden helmet." The march is resumed, the Polovtsi are met 
with, and a great battle is fought. 

The description of the battle, in which all Nature takes 
part — the eagles and the wolves, and the foxes who bark 
after the red shields of the Russians — is admirable. Igor's 
band is defeated. ** From sunrise to sunset, and from sunset 
to sunrise, the steel arrows flew, the swords clashed on the 
helmets, the lances were broken in a far-away land — the land 
of the Polovtsi." " The black earth under the hoofs of the 



12 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

horses was strewn with bones, and out of this sowing afflic- 
tion will rise in the land of the Russians.'* 

Then comes one of the best bits of early Russian poetry — 
the lamentations of Yaroslavna, Igor's wife, who waits for 
his return in the town of Putivl : 

" The voice of Yaroslavna resounds as the complaint of a cuckoo ; 
it resounds at the rise of the sunlight. 

" I will fly as a cuckoo down the river. I will wet my beaver 
sleeves in the Kayala; I will wash with them the wounds of my 
prince — the deep wounds of my hero. 

" Yaroslavna laments on the walls of Putivl. 

" Oh, Wind, terrible Wind ! Why dost thou, my master, blow so 
strong? Why didst thou carry on thy light wings the arrows of the 
Khan against the warriors of my hero? Is It not enough for thee to 
blow there, high up In the clouds? Not enough to rock the ships 
on the blue sea? Why didst thou lay down my beloved upon the 
grass of the Steppes? 

*' Yaroslavna laments upon the walls of Putivl. 

" Oh, glorious Dnieper, thou hast pierced thy way through the 
rocky hills to the land of Polovtsi. Thou hast carried the boats of 
Svyatoslav as they went to fight the Khan Kobyak. Bring, oh, my 
master, my husband back to me, and I will send no more tears through 
thy tide towards the sea. 

" Yaroslavna laments upon the walls of Putivl. 

"Brilliant Sun, thrice brilliant Sun! Thou givest heat to all, 
thou shinest for all. Why shouldest thou send thy burning rays 
upon my husband's warriors? Why didst thou, in the waterless 
steppe, dry up their bows in their hands? Why shouldest thou, 
making them suffer from thirst, cause their arrows to weigh so heavy 
upon their shoulders ? '* 

This little fragment gives some Idea of the general charac- 
ter and beauty of the Saying about Igor's Raid, * 

* English readers will find the translation of this poem in full in 
the excellent Anthology of Russian Literature from the Earliest 
Period to the Present Timej by Leo Wiener, published in two volumes, 
in 1902, by G. P. Putnam & Sons, at New York. Professor Wiener 
knows Russian literature perfectly well, and has made a very happy 
choice of a very great number of the most characteristic passages from 
Russian writers, beginning with the oldest period (911), and ending 
with our contemporaries, Gorkiy and Merezhkovskiy. 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 13 

Surely this poem was not the only one that was composed 
and sung In those times. The introduction Itself speaks of 
bards, and especially of one, Bayan, whose recitations and 
songs are compared to the wind that blows In the tops of the 
trees. Many such Bayans surely went about and sang similar 
" Sayings " during the festivals of the princes and their 
warriors. Unfortunately, only this one has reached us. The 
Russian Church, especially In the fifteenth, sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, pitilessly proscribed the singing of all 
the epic songs which circulated among the people: It con- 
sidered them " pagan," and Inflicted the heaviest penalties 
upon the bards and those who sang old songs In their rings. 
Consequently, only small fragments of this early folk-lore 
have reached us. 

And yet even these few relics of the past have exercised 
a powerful Influence upon Russian literature, ever since it 
has taken the liberty of treating other subjects than purely 
religious ones. If Russian versification took the rhythmical 
form, as against the syllabic. It was because this form was 
Imposed upon the Russian poets by the folk-song. Besides, 
down to quite recent times, folk-songs constituted such an Im- 
portant Item in Russian country life. In the homes alike of 
the landlord and the peasant, that they could not but deeply 
influence the Russian poets; and the first great poet of Russia, 
Pushkin, began his career by re-telling In verse his old 
nurse's tales to which he used to listen during the long winter 
nights. It Is also owing to our almost Incredible wealth 
of most musical popular songs that we have had In Russia, 
since so early a date as 1835, an opera (Verstovskly's 
Jskold's Grave) ^ based upon popular tradition, of which the 
purely Russian melodies at once catch the ear of the least 
musically-educated Russian. This Is also why the operas of 
Dargomyzhsky and the younger composers are now success- 
fully sung In the villages to peasant audiences and with local 
peasant choirs. 

The folk-lore and the folk-song have thus rendered to 
Russia an Immense service. They have maintained a certain 
unity of the spoken language all over Russia, as also a unity 
between the literary language and the language spoken by 
the masses; between the music of Glinka, Tchaykovsky, 



14 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Rimsky Korsakoff, Borodin, etc., and the music of the 
peasant choir — thus rendering both the poet and the com- 
poser accessible to the peasant. 

THE ANNALS 

And finally, whilst speaking of the early Russian litera- 
ture, a few words, at least, must be said of the Annals. 

No country has a richer collection of them. There were, 
in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, several centres of 
development in Russia, Kieff, Novgorod, Pskov, the land of 
Volhynia, the land of Suzdal (Vladimir, Moscow *), Rya- 
zan, etc., represented at that time independent republics, 
linked together only by the unity of language and religion, 
and by the fact that all of them elected their Princes — mili- 
tary defenders and judges — from the house of Rurik. Each 
of these centers had its own annals, bearing the stamp of 
local life and local character. The South Russian and Vol- 
hynian annals — of w*hich the so-called Nestor^s Annals are 
the fullest and the best known, are not merely dry records of 
facts : they are Imaginative and poetical In places. The annals 
of Novgorod bear the stamp of a city of rich merchants : they 
are very matter-of-fact, and the annalist warms to his sub- 
ject only when he describes the victories of the Novgorod 
republic over the Land of Suzdal. The Annals of the sister- 
republic of Pskov, on the contrary, are imbued with a demo- 
cratic spirit, and they relate with democratic sympathies and 
in a most picturesque manner the struggles between the poor 
of Pskov and the rich — the " black people " and the " white 
people." Altogether, the annals are surely not the work of 
monks, as was supposed at the outset; they must have been 
written for the different cities by men fully Informed about 
their political life, their treaties with other republics, their 
inner and outer conflicts. 

Moreover, the annals, especially those of Kieff, or Nes- 
tor's Annals, are something more than mere records of 
events; they are, as may be seen from the very name of the 

* The Russian name of the first capital of Russia Is Moskva. How- 
ever, " Moscow," like " Warsaw," etc., is of so general a use that 
it would be affectation to use the Russian name. 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 15 

latter {From whence and How came to be the Land of Rus- 
sia), attempts at writing a history of the country, under the 
inspiration of Greek models. Those manuscripts which have 
reached us — and especially is this true of the Kieff annals 
— have thus a compound structure, and historians distin- 
guish in them several superposed " layers " dating from dif- 
ferent periods. Old traditions; fragments of early historical 
knowledge, probably borrowed from the Byzantine histor- 
ians; old treaties; complete poems relating certain episodes, 
such as Igor's raid; and local annals from different periods, 
enter into their composition. Historical facts, relative to a 
very early period and fully confirmed by the Constantinople 
annalists and historians, are consequently mingled together 
with purely mythical traditions. But this is precisely what 
makes the high literary value of the Russian annals, 
especially those of Southern and South-western Russia, which 
contain most precious fragments of early literature. 

Such, then, were the treasuries of literature which Russia 
possessed at the beginning of the thirteenth century. 

MEDIi5:VAL LITERATURE 

The Mongol invasion, which took place in 1223, destroyed 
all this young civilisation, and threw Russia into quite new 
channels. The main cities of South and Middle Russia were 
laid waste. Kieff, which had been a populous city and a 
centre of learning, was reduced to the state of a straggling 
settlement, and disappeared from history for the next two 
centuries. Whole populations of large towns were either 
taken prisoners by the Mongols, or exterminated, if they 
had offered resistance to the invaders. As if to add to the 
misfortunes of Russia, the Turks soon followed the Mon- 
gols, invading the Balkan peninsula, and by the end of the 
fifteenth century the two countries from which and through 
which learning used to come to Russia, namely Servia and 
Bulgaria, fell under the rule of the Osmanlis. All the life of 
Russia underwent a deep transformation. 

Before the invasion the land was covered with independ- 
ent republics, similar to the mediaeval city-republics of 
Western Europe. Now, a military State, powerfully sup- 



1 6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

ported by the Church, began to be slowly built up at Moscow, 
which conquered, with the aid of the Mongol Khans, the in- 
dependent principalities that surrounded it. The main effort 
of the statesmen and the most active men of the Church was 
now directed towards the building up of a powerful kingdom 
which should be capable of throwing off the Mongol yoke. 
State ideals were substituted for those of local autonomy and 
federation. The Church, in its effort to constitute a Christian 
nationality, free from all intellectual and moral contact with 
the abhorred pagan Mongols, became a stern centralised 
power which pitilessly persecuted everything that was a re- 
minder of a pagan past. It worked hard, at the same time, 
to establish upon Byzantine ideals the unlimited authority 
of the Moscow princes. Serfdom was introduced in order to 
increase the military power of the State. All Independent 
local life was destroyed. The idea of Moscow becoming a 
centre for Church and State was powerfully supported by the 
Church, which preached that Moscow was the heir to Con- 
stantinople — " a third Rome," where the only true Chris- 
tianity was now to develop. And at a later epoch, when the 
Mongol yoke had been thrown off, the work of consolidat- 
ing the Moscow monarchy was continued by the Tsars and 
the Church, and the struggle was against the intrusion of 
Western influences, In order to prevent the " Latin " Church 
from extending its authority over Russia. 

These new conditions necessarily exercised a deep Influence 
upon the further development of literature. The freshness 
and vigorous youthfulness of the early epic poetry was gone 
forever. Sadness, melancholy, resignation became the leading 
features of Russian folk-lore. The continually repeated raids 
of the Tartars, who carried away whole villages as prisoners 
to their encampments in the South-eastern Steppes ; the suffer- 
ings of the prisoners in slavery; the visits of the baskdks, 
who came to levy a high tribute and behaved as conquerors 
in a conquered land; the hardships Inflicted upon the popula- 
tions by the growing military State — all this Impressed the 
popular songs with a deep note of sadness which they have 
never since lost. At the same time the gay festival songs of 
old and the epic songs of the wandering bards were strictly 
forbidden, and those who dared to sing them were cruelly 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 17 

persecuted by the Church, which saw in these songs not only 
a reminiscence of a pagan past, but also a possible link of 
union with the Tartars. 

Learning was gradually concentrated In the monasteries, 
every one of which was a fortress built against the invaders ; 
and it was limited, of course, to Christian literature. It 
became entirely scholastic. Knowledge of nature was " un- 
holy," something of a witchcraft. Asceticism was preached 
as the highest virtue, and became the dominant feature of 
written literature. Legends about the saints were widely 
read and repeated verbally, and they found no balance In 
such learning as had been developed In Western Europe In 
the mediaeval universities. The desire for a knowledge of 
nature was severely condemned by the Church, as a token 
of self-conceit. All poetry was a sin. The annals lost their 
animated character and became dry enumerations of the 
successes of the rising State, or merely related unimportant 
details concerning the local bishops and superiors of 
monasteries. 

During the twelfth century there had been. In the northern 
republics of Novgorod and Pksov, a strong current of 
opinion leading, on the one side, to Protestant rationalism, 
and on the other side to the development of Christianity on 
the lines of the early Christian brotherhoods. The apocryphal 
Gospels, the books of the Old Testament, and various books 
in which true Christianity was discussed, were eagerly copied 
and had a wide circulation. Now, the head of the Church In 
Central Russia violently antagonised all such tendencies 
towards reformed Christianity. A strict adherence to the very 
letter of the teachings of the Byzantine Church was exacted 
from the flock. Every kind of interpretation of the Gospels 
became heresy. All Intellectual life In the domain of religion, 
as well as every criticism of the dignitaries of the Moscow 
Church, was treated as dangerous, and those who had ven- 
tured this way had to flee from Moscow, seeking refuge 
In the remote monasteries of the far North. As to the great 
movement of the Renaissance, which gave a new life to 
Western Europe, It did not reach Russia: the Church con- 
sidered It a return to paganism, and cruelly exterminated Its 
forerunners who came within her reach, burning them at the 



1 8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

stake, or putting them to death on the racks of her torture- 
chambers. 

I will not dwell upon this period, which covers nearly five 
centuries, because It offers very little Interest for the student 
of Russian literature; I will only mention the two or three 
works which must not be passed by In silence. 

One of them Is the letters exchanged between the Tsar 
John the Terrible (John IV.), and one of his chief vassals, 
Prince Kurbskly, who had left Moscow for Lithuania. From 
beyond the Lithuanian border he addressed to his cruel, half- 
lunatic ex-master long letters of reproach, which John an- 
swered, developing In his epistles the theory of the divine 
origin of the Tsar's authority. This correspondence Is most 
characteristic of the political Ideas that were current then, 
and of the learning of the period. 

After the death of John the Terrible (who occupies in 
Russian history the same position as Louis XL In French, 
since he destroyed by fire and sword — but with a truly Tartar 
cruelty — the power of the feudal princes), Russia passed, as 
Is known, through years of great disturbance. The pretender 
Demetrius, who proclaimed himself a son of John, came 
from Poland and took possession of the throne at Moscow. 
The Poles Invaded Russia, and were the masters of Moscow, 
Smolensk, and all the western towns; and when Demetrius 
was overthrown, a few months after his coronation, a general 
revolt of the peasants broke out, while all Central Russia was 
Invaded by Cossack bands, and several new pretenders made 
their appearance. These ** Disturbed Years '' must have left 
traces In popular songs, but all such songs entirely disappeared 
in Russia during the dark period of serfdom which followed, 
and we know of them only through an Englishman, Richard 
James, who was in Russia In 1619, and who wrote down some 
of the songs relating to this period. The same must be said of 
the folk-literature, which must have come into existence dur- 
ing the later portion of the seventeenth century. The definite 
introduction of serfdom under the first Romanoff (Mikhail, 
1612-1640) ; the wide-spread revolts of the peasants which 
followed — culminating in the terrific uprising of Stepan 
Razin, who has become since then a favourite hero with the 
oppressed peasants; and finally the stern and cruel persecu- 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 19 

tion of the Non-conformists and their migrations eastward 
into the depths of the Urals — all these events must have 
found their expression in folk-songs; but the State and the 
Church so cruelly hunted down everything that bore trace 
of a spirit of rebellion that no works of popular creation 
from that period have reached us. Only a few writings of a 
polemic character and the remarkable autobiography of an 
exiled priest have been preserved by the Non-conformists. 



SPLIT IN THE CHURCH MEMOIRS OF AVVAKUM 

The first Russian Bible was printed in Poland in 1580. A 
few years later a printing office was established at Moscow, 
and the Russian Church authorities had now to decide which 
of the written texts then in circulation should be taken for the 
printing of the Holy Books. The handwritten copies which 
were in use at that time were full of errors, and it was evi- 
dently necessary to revise them by comparing them with the 
Greek texts before committing any of them to print. This 
revision was undertaken at Moscow, with the aid of learned 
men brought over partly from Greece and partly from the 
Greco-Latin Academy of Kieff; but for many different rea- 
sons this revision became the source of a widely spread dis- 
content, and in the middle of the seventeenth century a for- 
midable split (raskol) took place in the Church. It hardly 
need be said that this split was not a mere matter of theology, 
nor of Greek readings. The seventeenth century was a century 
when the Moscow Church had attained a formidable power 
in the State. The head of it, the Patriarch Nikon, was, 
moreover, a very ambitious man, who intended to play 
in the East the part which the Pope played in the West, and 
to that end he tried to impress the people by his grandeur 
and luxury — which meant, of course, heavy impositions 
upon the serfs of the Church and the lower clergy. He was 
hated by both, and was soon accused by the people of drift- 
ing into " Latinism " ; so that the split between the people and 
the clergy — especially the higher clergy — took the character 
of a wide-spread separation of the people from the Greek 
Church. 

Most of the Non-conformist writings of the time are purely 



20 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

scholastic In character and consequently offer no literary 
interest. But the memoirs of a Non-conformist priest, Av- 
VAKUM (died 1681), who was exiled to Siberia and made 
his way on foot, with Cossack parties, as far as the banks 
of the Amur, deserve to be mentioned. By their simplicity, 
their sincerity, and absence of all sensationalism, they have 
remained the prototype of Russian memoirs, down to the 
present day. Here are a few quotations from this remarka- 
ble work: 

" When I came to Yeniseisk," Awakum wrote, " another order 
came from Moscow to send me to Dauria, 2,000 miles from Moscow, 
and to place me under the orders of Pashkoff. He had with him sixty 
men, and in punishment of my sins he proved to be a terrible man. 
Continually he burnt, and tortured, and flogged his men, and I had 
often spoken to him, remonstrating that what he did was not good, 
and now I fell myself into his hands. When we went along the 
Angara river he ordered me, * Get out of your boat, you are a heretic, 
that is why the boats don't get along. Go you on foot, across the 
mountains.' It was hard to do. Mountains high, forests impenetrable, 
stony cliffs rising like walls — and we had to cross them, going about 
with wild beasts and birds; and I wrote him a little letter which 
began thus : ' Man, be afraid of God. Even the heavenly forces and 
all animals and men are afraid of Him. Thou alone carest nought 
about Him.' Much more was written in this letter, and I sent it 
to him. Presently I saw fifty men coming to me, and they took me 
before him. He had his sword in his hand and shook with fury. 
He asked me : * Art thou a priest, or a priest degraded ? ' I answered, 
* I am Awakum, a priest, what dost thou want from me? ' And he 
began to beat me on the head and he threw me on the ground, and 
continued to beat me while I was lying on the ground, and then 
ordered them to give me seventy-two lashes with the knout, and 
I replied : ' Jesus Christ, son of God, help me ! ' and he was only 
the more angered that I did not ask for mercy. Then they brought 
me to a small fort, and put me in a dungeon, giving me some straw, 
and all the winter I was kept in that tower, without fire. And the 
winter there Is terribly cold; but God supported me, even though I 
had no furs. I lay there as a dog on the straw. One day they would 
feed me, another not. Rats were swarming all around. I used to kill 
them with my cap — the poor fools would not even give me a stick.'* 

Later on Awakum was taken to the Amur, and when he 
and his wife had to march, in the winter, over the ice of the 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 21 

great river, she would often fall down from sheer exhaus- 
tion. " Then I came," Avvakum writes, " to lift her up, 
and she exclaimed in despair: * How long, priest, how long 
will these sufferings continue? ' And I replied to her: * Until 
death even ' ; and then she would get up saying : * Well, 
then, priest; let us march on/ " No sufferings could van- 
quish this great man. From the Amur he was recalled to 
Moscow, and once more made the whole journey on foot. 
There he was accused of resistance to Church and State, and 
was burned at the stake in 168 1. 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

The violent reforms of Peter I., who created a military 
European State out of the semi-Byzantine and semi-Tartar 
State which Russia had been under his predecessors, gave a 
new turn to literature. It would be out of place to appre- 
ciate here the historical significance of the reforms of Peter I., 
but it must be mentioned that in Russian literature one finds, 
at least, two forerunners of Peter's work. 

One of them was KoTOSHiKHiN (1630-1667), an his- 
torian.* He ran away from Moscow to Sweden, and wrote 
there, fifty years before Peter became Tsar, a history of Rus- 
sia, in which he strenuously criticised the condition of ignor- 
ance prevailing at Moscow, and advocated wide reforms. 
His manuscript was unknown till the nineteenth century, 
when it was discovered at Upsala. Another writer, imbued 
with the same ideas, was a South Slavonian, KryzhAnitch, 
who was called to Moscow in 1659, in order to revise the 
Holy Books, and wrote a most remarkable work, in which 
he also preached the necessity of thorough reforms. He 
was exiled two years later to Siberia, where he died. 

Peter I., who fully realised the importance of literature, 
and was working hard to introduce European learning 
amongst his countrymen, understood that the old Slavonian 
tongue, which was then in use among Russian writers, but 
was no longer the current language of the nation, could only 
hamper the development of literature and learning. Its 

* In all names the vowels a, e, i, o, u have to be pronounced as In 
Italian {father, then, in, on, push). 



22 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

forms, Its expressions, and grammar were already quite 
strange to the Russians. It could be used still in religious 
writings, but a book on geometry, or algebra, or military 
art, written in the Biblical Old Slavonian, would have been 
simply ridiculous. Consequently, Peter removed the diffi- 
culty in his usual trenchant way. He established a new 
alphabet, to aid in the introduction into literature of the 
spoken but hitherto unwritten language. This alphabet, 
partly borrowed from the Old Slavonian, but very much 
simplified. Is the one now in use. 

Literature proper little Interested Peter I. : he looked upon 
printed matter from the strictly utilitarian point of view, 
and his chief aim was to familiarise the Russians with the 
first elements of the exact sciences, as well as with the arts 
of navigation, warfare, and fortification. Accordingly, the 
writers of his time offer but little interest from the liter- 
ary point of view, and I need mention but a very few of 
them. 

The most interesting writer of the time of Peter I. and 
his immediate successors was perhaps Procopovitch, a 
priest, without the slightest taint of religious fanaticism, 
a great admirer of West-European learning, who founded a 
Greco-Slavonian academy. The courses of Russian literature 
also make mention of Kantemir (1709- 1744), the son of 
a Moldavian prince who had emigrated with his subjects to 
Russia. He wrote satires, in which he expressed himself 
with a freedom of thought that was quite remarkable for 
his time.* Tkretiaovskiy (1703-1769) offers a certain 
melancholy interest. He was the son of a priest, and In his 
youth ran away from his father. In order to study at Mos- 
cow. Thence he went to Amsterdam and Paris, travelling 
mostly on foot. He studied at the Paris University and be- 
came an admirer of advanced ideas, about which he wrote 
in extremely clumsy verses. On his return to St. Petersburg 
he lived all his after-life In poverty and neglect, persecuted on 
all sides by sarcasms for his endeavours to reform Russian 
versification. He was himself entirely devoid of any poetical 
talent, and yet he rendered a great service to Russian poetry. 

* In the years 1 730-1 738 he was ambassador at London. 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 23 

Up to that date Russian verse was syllabic; but he under- 
stood that syllabic verse does not accord with the spirit of 
the Russian language, and he devoted his life to prove that 
Russian poetry should be written according to the laws of 
rhythmical versification. If he had had even a spark of 
talent, he would have found no difficulty in proving his 
thesis; but he had none, and consequently resorted to the 
most ridiculous artifices. Some of his verses were lines of 
the most incongruous words, strung together for the sole 
purpose of showing how rhythm and rhymes may be 
obtained. If he could not otherwise get his rhyme, he did not 
hesitate to split a word at the end of a verse, beginning the 
next one with what was left of It. In spite of his absurdities, 
he succeeded In persuading Russian poets to adopt rhythmi- 
cal versification, and its rules have been followed ever since. 
In fact, this was only the natural development of the Rus- 
sian popular song. 

There was also a historian, Tatischeff (1686-1750), 
who wrote a history of Russia, and began a large work 
on the geography of the Empire — a hard-working man 
who studied a great deal In many sciences, as well as 
in Church matters, was superintendent of mines in the 
Urals, and w*rote a number of political works as well 
as history. He was the first to appreciate the value of 
the annals, which he collected and systematlsed, thus pre- 
paring materials for future historians, but he left no last- 
ing trace in Russian literature. In fact, only one man of 
that period deserves more than a passing mention. It was 
LoMONOSOFF (17 1 2-1 765). He was born in a village 
on the White Sea, near Archangel, in a fisherman's family. 
He also ran away from his parents, came on foot to Mos- 
cow, and entered a school in a monastery, living there in 
indescribable poverty. Later on he went to Kieff, also on 
foot, and there he very nearly became a priest. It so hap- 
pened, however, that at that time the St. Petersburg 
Academy of Sciences applied to the Moscow Theological 
Academy for twelve good students who might be sent to 
study abroad. Lomonosoff was chosen as one of them. He 
went to Germany, where he studied natural sciences under 
the best natural philosophers of the time, especially under 



24 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Christian Wolff, — always in terrible poverty, almost on the 
verge of starvation. In 1741 he came back to Russia, and 
was nominated a member of the Academy of Sciences at St. 
Petersburg. 

The Academy was then in the hands of a few Germans 
who looked upon all Russian scholars with undisguised con- 
tempt, and consequently received Lomonosoff in a most 
unfriendly manner. It did not help him that the great mathe- 
matician, Euler, wrote that the work of Lomonosoff In 
natural philosophy and chemistry revealed a man of genius, 
and that any Academy might be happy to possess him. A 
bitter struggle soon began between the German members 
of the Academy and the Russian who, It must be owned, 
was of a very violent character, especially when he was 
under the Influence of drink. Poverty, his salary being con- 
fiscated as a punishment; detention at the police station; 
exclusion from the Senate of the Academy; and, worst of 
all, political persecution — such was the fate of Lomonosoff, 
who had joined the party of Elizabeth, and consequently 
was treated as an enemy when Catharine II. came to the 
throne. It was not until the nineteenth century that Lom- 
onosoff was duly appreciated. 

" Lomonosoff was himself a university," was Pushkin's 
remark, and this remark was quite correct: so varied were 
the directions in which he worked. Not only was he a dis- 
tinguished natural philosopher, chemist, physical geographer, 
and mineralogist : he laid also the foundations of the gram- 
mar of the Russian language, which he understood as part 
of a general grammar of all languages, considered in their 
natural evolution. He also worked out the different forms 
of Russian versification, and he created quite a new literary 
language, of which he could say that it was equally appro- 
priate for rendering " the powerful oratory of Cicero, the 
brilliant earnestness of Virgil and the pleasant talk of Ovid, 
as well as the subtlest imaginary conceptions of philosophy, 
or discussing the various properties of matter and the 
changes which are always going on in the structure of the 
universe and In human affairs." This he proved by his 
poetry, by his scientific writings, and by his " Discourses," in 
which he combined Huxley's readiness to defend science 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 25 

against blind faith with Humboldt's poetical conception of 
Nature. 

His odes were, it is true, written in the pompous style which 
was dear to the pseudo-classicism then reigning, and he 
retained Old Slavonian expressions ** for dealing with ele- 
vated subjects, but in his scientific and other writings he 
used the commonly spoken language with great effect and 
force. Owing to the very variety of sciences which he had 
to acclimatise in Russia, he could not give much time to 
original research; but when he took up the defence of the 
ideas of Corpernicus, Newton, or Huyghens against the 
opposition which they met with on theological grounds, a 
true philosopher of natural science, in the modern sense of 
the term, was revealed in him. In his early boyhood he used 
to accompany his father — a sturdy northern fisherman — 
on his fishing expeditions, and there he got his love of 
Nature and a fine comprehension of natural phenomena, 
which made of his Memoir on Arctic Exploration a work 
that has not lost its value even now. It is well worthy of 
note that in this last work he had stated the mechanical 
theory of heat in such definite expressions that he un- 
doubtedly anticipated by a full century this great discovery 
of our own time — a fact which has been entirely overlooked, 
even in Russia. 

A contemporary of Lomonosoff, Sumarokoff (1717- 
1777,) who was described in those years as a " Russian 
Racine," must also be mentioned in this place. He belonged 
to the higher nobility, and had received an entirely French 
education. His dramas, of which he wrote a great number, 
were entirely imitated from the French pseudo-classical 
school; but he contributed very much, as will be seen from 
a subsequent chapter, to the development of the Russian 
theatre. Sumarokoff wrote also lyrical verses, elegies, and 
satires — all of no great importance; but the remarkably good 
style of his letters, free of the Slavonic archaisms, which were 
habitual at that time, deserves to be mentioned. 



26 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

THE TIMES OF CATHERINE II. 

With Catherine II., who reigned from 1752 till 1796, 
commenced a new era In Russian literature. It began to 
shake off Its previous dulness, and although the Russian 
writers continued to Imitate French models — chiefly pseudo- 
classical — they began also to Introduce into their writings 
various subjects taken from direct observation of Russian 
life. There Is, altogether, a frivolous youthfulness In the 
literature of the first years of Catherine's reign, when the 
Empress, being yet full of progressive Ideas borrowed from 
her Intercourse with French philosophers, composed — 
basing it on Montesquieu — her remarkable Instruction 
(Nakdz) to the deputies she convoked; wrote several com- 
edies. In which she ridiculed the old-fashioned representa- 
tives of Russian nobility; and edited a monthly review in 
which she entered into controversy both with some ultra- 
conservative writers and with the more advanced young 
reformers. An academy of belles-lettres was founded, and 
Princess Vorontsova-DAshkova (1743-18 19) — ^who had 
aided Catherine II. in her coup d! etat against her hus- 
band, Peter III., and in taking possession of the throne — 
was nominated president of the Academy of Sciences. She 
assisted the Academy with real earnestness in compiling a 
dictionary of the Russian language, and she also edited a 
review which left a mark in Russian literature; while her 
memoirs, written In French (Mon Histoire) are a very valu- 
able, though not always impartial, historical document.* 
Altogether there began at that time quite a literary move- 
ment, which produced a remarkable poet, DerzhAvin 
(1743-18 16) ; the writer of comedies, VoN WiziN (1745- 
1792) ; the first philosopher, Novikoff (1742-1818) ; and 
a political writer, Radischfef (1749-1802). 

The poetry of Derzhavin certainly does not answer our 
modern requirements. He was the poet laureate of Cath- 
erine, and sang in pompous odes the virtues of the ruler and 
the victories of her generals and favourites. Russia was 

* In 1 775-1 782 she spent a few years at Edinburgh for the educa- 
tion of her son. 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 27 

then taking a firm hold on the shores of the Black Sea, and 
beginning to play a serious part in European affairs; and 
occasions for the inflation of Derzhavln's patriotic feelings 
were not wanting. However, he had some of the marks 
of the true poet; he was open to the feeling of the poetry 
of Nature, and capable of expressing It In verses that were 
positively good {Ode to God, The Waterfall). Nay, these 
really poetical verses, which are found side by side with 
unnatural, heavy lines stuffed with obsolete pompous words, 
are so evidently better than the latter, that they certainly 
were an admirable object-lesson for all subsequent Russian 
poets. They must have contributed to induce our poets to 
abandon mannerism. Pushkin, who in his youth admired 
Derzhavin, must have felt at once the disadvantages of a 
pompous style. Illustrated by his predecessor, and with his 
wonderful command of his mother-tongue he was necessarily 
brought to abandon the artificial language which formerly 
was considered " poetical," — he began to write as we speak. 

The comedies of Von Wizin (or Fonvizin), were 
quite a revelation for his contemporaries. His first comedy, 
The Brigadier, which he wrote at the age of twenty-two, 
created quite a sensation, and till now it has not lost its 
interest; while his second comedy, Nedorosl (1782), was 
received as an event in Russian literature, and is ^ occa- 
sionally played even at the present day. Both deal with 
purely Russian subjects, taken from every-day life; and 
although Von Wizin too freely borrowed from foreign 
authors (the subject of The Brigadier is borrowed from a 
Danish comedy of Holberg, Jean de France)^ he managed 
nevertheless to make his chief personages truly Russian. In 
this sense he certainly was a creator of the Russian national 
drama, and he was also the first to introduce into our litera- 
ture the realistic tendency which became so powerful with 
Pushkin, Gogol and their followers. In his political opinions 
he remained true to the progressive opinions which Cath- 
erine II. patronised In the first years of her reign, and in his 
capacity of secretary to Count Panin he boldly denounced 
serfdom, favouritism, and want of education In Russia. 

I pass in silence several writers of the same epoch, namely, 
BoGDANOViTCH (1743-1803), the author of a pretty and 



28 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

light poem, Dushehka; Hemnitzer (1745-1784), a gifted 
writer of fables, who was a forerunner of Kryloff ; Kapnist 
(1757-1829), who wrote rather superficial satires in good 
verse; Prince ScherbAtoff (1733-1790), who began with 
several others the scientific collecting of old annals and folk- 
lore, and undertook to write a history of Russia, in which we 
find a scientific criticism of the annals and other sources of 
information ; and several others. But I must say a few words 
upon the masonic movement which took place on the 
threshold of the nineteenth century. 

THE FREEMASONS: FIRST MANIFESTATION OF POLITICAL 

THOUGHT. 

The looseness of habits which characterised Russian high 
society in the eighteenth century, the absence of ideals, the 
servility of the nobles, and the horrors of serfdom, neces- 
sarily produced a reaction amongst the better minds, and 
this reaction took the shape, partly of a widely spread 
Masonic movement, and partly of Christian mysticism, which 
originated in the mystical teachings that had at that time 
widely spread in Germany. The freemasons and their 
Society of Friends undertook a serious effort for spreading 
moral education among the masses, and they found in 
NoviKOFF (1744-18 18) a true apostle of renovation. He 
began his literary career very early, in one of those satiri- 
cal reviews of which Catherine herself took the initiative at 
the beginning of her reign, and already in his amiable con- 
troversy with "the grandmother" (Catherine) he showed 
that he would not remain satisfied with the superficial satire 
in which the empress delighted, but that, contrary to her 
wishes, he would go to the root of the evils of the time : 
namely, serfdom and its brutalising effects upon society at 
large. Novikoff was not only a well-educated man : he com- 
bined the deep moral convictions of an idealist with the 
capacities of an organiser and a business man; and although 
his review (from which the net income went entirely for 
philanthropic and educational purposes) was soon stopped 
by " the grandmother," he started in Moscow a most suc- 
cessful printing and book-selling business, for editing and 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 29 

spreading books of an ethical character. His immense print- 
ing office, combined with a hospital for the workers and a 
chemist's shop, from which medicine was given free to all 
the poor of Moscow, was soon in business relations with 
booksellers all over Russia; while his influence upon edu- 
cated society was growing rapidly, and working in an excel- 
lent direction. In 1787, during a famine, he organised relief 
for the starving peasants — guite a fortune having been put 
for this purpose at his disposal by one of his pupils. Of 
course, both the Church and the Government looked with 
suspicion upon the spreading of Christianity, as it was under- 
stood by the freemason Friends; and although the metro- 
politan of Moscow testified that Novikoff was " the best 
Christian he ever knew," Novikoff was accused of political 
conspiracy. 

He was arrested, and in accordance with the personal 
wish of Catherine, though to the astonishment of all 
those who knew anything about him, was condemned to 
death In 1792. The death-sentence, however, was not ful- 
filled, but he was taken for fifteen years to the terrible 
fortress of Schiisselburg, where he was put in the secret cell 
formerly occupied by the Grand Duke Ivan Antonovltch, and 
where his freemason friend. Doctor Bagryanskly, volun- 
teered to remain Imprisoned with him. He remained there 
till the death of Catherine. Paul I. released him, In 1796, 
on the very day that he became emperor ; but Novikoff came 
out of the fortress a broken man, and fell entirely Into 
mysticism, towards which there was already a marked tend- 
ency in several lodges of the freemasons. 

The Christian mystics were not happier. One of them, 
LAbzin ( 1 766-1 825), who exercised a great Influence upon 
society by his writings against corruption, was also de- 
nounced, and ended his days In exile. However, both the 
mystical Christians and the freemasons (some of whose 
lodges followed the Rosenkreuz teachings) exercised a deep 
influence on Russia. With the advent of Alexander I. to the 
throne the freemasons obtained more facilities for spread- 
ing their Ideas; and the growing conviction that serfdom must 
be abolished, and that the tribunals, as well as the whole 
system of administration, were In need of complete reform, 



30 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

was certainly to a great extent a result of their work. Be- 
sides, quite a number of remarkable men received their edu- 
cation at the Moscow Institute of the Friends — founded by 
Novlkoff — Including the historian Karamzin, the brothers 
Turgueneff, uncles of the great novelist, and several political 
men of mark. 

Radischeff (1749-1802), a political writer of the 
same epoch, had a still more tragic end. He received his 
education In the Corps of Pages, and was one of those young 
men whom the Russian Government had sent In 1766 to 
Germany to finish there their education. He followed the 
lectures of Hellert and Plattner at Leipzig, and studied very 
earnestly the French philosophers. On his return, he pub- 
lished. In 1790, a Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, 
the idea of which seems to have been suggested to him by 
Sterne's Sentimental Journey. In this book he very ably inter- 
mingled his Impressions of travel with various philosoph- 
ical and moral discussions and with pictures from Russian 
life. 

He Insisted especially upon the horrors of serfdom, as also 
upon the bad organisation of the administration, the ve- 
nality of the law-courts, and so on, confirming his general 
condemnations by concrete facts taken from real life. Cath- 
erine, who already before the beginning of the revolution In 
France, and especially since the events of 1789, had come to 
regard with horror the liberal Ideas of her youth, ordered 
the book to be confiscated and destroyed at once. She 
described the author as a revolutionist, " worse than Pugat- 
choff " ; he ventured to "speak with approbation of Franklin" 
and was infected with French ideas ! Consequently, she wrote 
herself a sharp criticism of the book, upon which Its prosecu- 
tion had to be based. Radischeff was arrested, confined to 
the fortress, later on transported to the remotest portions 
of Eastern Siberia, on the Olenek. He was released only In 
1 801. Next year, seeing that even the advent of Alexander the 
First did not mean the coming of a new reformatory spirit, 
he put an end to his life by suicide. As to his book, it still 
remains forbidden in Russia. A new edition of It, which was 
made In 1872, was confiscated and destroyed, and In 1888 
the permission was given to a publisher to issue the work in 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 31 

editions of a hundred copies only, which were to be dis- 
tributed among a few men of science and certain high func- 



tionaries.* 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

These wxre, then, the elements out of which Russian 
literature had to be evolved In the nineteenth century. The 
slow work of the last five hundred years had already pre- 
pared that admirable, pliable, and rich Instrument — the liter- 
ary language in which Pushkin would soon be enabled to 
write his melodious verses and Turgueneff his no less 
melodious prose. From the autobiography of the Non-con- 
formist martyr, Avvakum, one could already guess the value 
of the spoken language of the Russian people for literary 
purposes. 

Tretiakovskly, by his clumsy verses, and especially Lom- 
onosoff and Derzhavin by their odes, had definitely repelled 
the syllabic form that had been Introduced from France 
and Poland, and had established the tonic, rhythmical 
form which was indicated by the popular song itself. 
Lomonosoff had created a popular scientific language; he 
had Invented a number of new words, and had proved that 
the Latin and Old Slavonian constructions were hostile to 
the spirit of Russian, and quite unnecessary. The age of Cath- 
erine n. further introduced Into written literature the forms 
of familiar everyday talk, borrowed even from the peasant 
class; and Novlkoff had created a Russian philosophical 
language — still heavy on account of its underlying mys- 
ticism, but splendidly adapted, as It appeared a few decades 
later, to abstract metaphysical discussions. The elements for 
a great and original literature were thus ready. They re- 
quired only a vivifying spirit which should use them for 
higher purposes. This genius was Pushkin. But before speak- 
ing of him, the historian and novelist Karamzin and the 

* Two free editions of it were made, one by Herzen at London : 
Prince Scherbdtoff and A, Radischeff, 1858; and another at Leip- 
zig: Journey, in 1876. See A. Pypin's History of Russian Liter- 
ature, vol. iv. 



32 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

poet Zhukovskly * must be mentioned, as they represent a 
link between the two epochs. 

Karamzin (1766- 1 826), by his monumental work, The 
History of the Russian State, did in literature what the great 
war of 18 12 had done in national life. He awakened the 
national consciousness and created a lasting interest in the 
history of the nation, in the making of the empire, in the 
evolution of national character and institutions. Karamzin's 
History was reactionary in spirit. He was the historian 
of the Russian State, not of the Russian people; the poet 
of the virtues of monarchy and the wisdom of the rulers, but 
not an observer of the work that had been accomplished by 
the unknown masses of the nation. He was not the man to 
understand the federal principles which prevailed in Russia 
down to the fifteenth century, and still less the communal 
principles which pervaded Russian life and had permitted the 
nation to conquer and to colonise an immense continent. For 
him, the history of Russia was the regular, organic develop- 
ment of a monarchy, from the first appearance of the 
Scandinavian varingiar down to the present times, and he 
was chiefly concerned with describing the deeds of monarchs 
in their conquests and their building up of a State; but, as 
it often happens with Russian writers, his foot-notes were a 
work of history in themselves. They contained a rich mine of 
information concerning the sources of Russia's history, and 
they suggested to the ordinary reader that the early centuries 
of mediaeval Russia, with her independent city-republics, 
were far more interesting than they appeared in the book.t 
Karamzin was not the founder of a school, but he showed 
to Russia that she has a past worth knowing. Besides, his 
work was a work of art. It was written in a brilliant style, 
which accustomed the public to read historical works. The 
result was, that the first edition of his eight-volume History 
— 3,000 copies — was sold in twenty-five days. 

* Pronounce ZA as a French ; (Joukovskiy In French). 

t It is now known how much of the preparatory work which 
rendered Karamzin's History possible was done by the Academicians 
Schlotzer, Miiller, and Stritter, as well as by the above-mentioned 
historian ScherbatofE, who had thoroughly studied the annals and 
whose views Karamzin closely followed In his work. 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 33 

However, Karamzin's influence was not limited to his 
History: It was even greater through his novels and his 
Letters of a Russian Traveller Abroad. In the latter he 
made an attempt to bring the products of European thought, 
philosophy, and political life Into circulation amidst a wide 
public; to spread broadly humanitarian views, at a time when 
they were most needed as a counterpoise to the sad realities 
of political and social life; and to establish a link of connec- 
tion between the intellectual life of our country and that of 
Europe. As to Karamzin's novels, he appeared In them as a 
true follower of sentimental romanticism; but this was pre- 
cisely what was required then, as a reaction against the 
would-be classical school. In one of his novels. Poor Liza 
(1792), he described the misfortunes of a peasant girl who 
fell in love with a nobleman, was abandoned by him, and 
finally drowned herself in a pond. This peasant girl surely 
would not answer to our present realistic requirements. She 
spoke in choice language and was not a peasant girl at all; 
but all reading Russia cried about the misfortune of " poor 
Liza," and the pond where the heroine was supposed to have 
been drowned became a place of pilgrimage for the senti- 
mental youths of Moscow. The spirited protest against 
serfdom which we shall find later on in modern literature 
was thus already born in Karamzin's time. 

Zhukovskiy (1783-185 2) was a romantic poet in the 
true sense of the word, and a true worshipper of poetry, who 
fully understood its elevating power. His original produc- 
tions were few. He was mainly a translator and rendered In 
most beautiful Russian verses the poems of Schiller, Uhland, 
Herder, Byron, Thomas Moore, and others, as well as the 
Odyssey, the Hindu poem of Nal and Ramayanti, and the 
songs of the Western Slavonians. The beauty of these trans- 
lations Is such that I doubt whether there are In any other 
language, even in German, equally beautiful renderings of 
foreign poets. However, Zhukovskiy was not a mere trans- 
lator: he took from other poets only what was agreeable to 
his own nature and what he would have liked to sing himself. 
Sad reflections about the unknown, an aspiration towards dis- 
tant lands, the sufferings of love, and the sadness of 
separation — all lived through by the poet — were the dis- 



34 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

tinctlve features of his poetry. They reflected his inner self. 
We may object now to his ultra-romanticism, but this direc- 
tion, at that time, was an appeal to the broadly humanitarian 
feelings, and it was of first necessity for progress. By his 
poetry, Zhukovskiy appealed chiefly to women, and when we 
deal later on with the part that Russian women played half 
a century later in the general development of their country, 
we shall see that his appeal was not made in vain. Altogether, 
Zhukovskiy appealed to the best sides of human nature. One 
note, however, was missing entirely in his poetry : it was the 
appeal to the sentiments of freedom and citizenship. This 
appeal came from the " Decembrist " poet, Ryleeff. 



THE '^ DECEMBRISTS '' 



The Tsar Alexander I. went through the same evolution as 
his grandmother, Catherine II. He was educated by the 
republican, La Harpe, and began his reign as a quite liberal 
sovereign, ready to grant to Russia a constitution. He did 
It In fact for Poland and Finland, and made a first step 
towards It in Russia. But he did not dare to touch serfdom, 
and gradually he fell under the influence of German mystics, 
became alarmed at liberal ideas, and surrendered his will to 
the worst reactionaries. The man who ruled Russia during 
the last ten or twelve years of his reign was General 
Arakcheeff — a maniac of cruelty and militarism, who main- 
tained his Influence by means of the crudest flattery and 
simulated religiousness. 

A reaction against these conditions was sure to grow up, 
the more so as the Napoleonic wars had brought a great 
number of Russians In contact with Western Europe. The 
campaigns made in Germany, and the occupation of Paris by 
the Russian armies, had familiarised many oflUcers with the 
Ideas of liberty which reigned still in the French capital, 
while at home the endeavours of Novikoff were bearing 
fruit, and the freemason Friends continued his work. When 
Alexander I., having fallen under the influence of Madame 
Kriidener and other German mystics, concluded In 1815 the 
Holy Alliance with Germany and Austria, In order to combat 
all liberal ideas, secret societies began to be formed In Russia 



RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 35 

— chiefly among the ofHcers — in order to promote the ideas 
of liberty, of abolition of serfdom, and of equality before the 
law, as the necessary steps towards the abolition of absolute 
rule. Everyone who has read Tolstoy's War and Peace must 
remember " Pierre " and the impression produced upon this 
young man by his first meeting with an old freemason. 
*' Pierre " is a true representative of many young men who 
later on became known as " Decembrists.'' Like " Pierre," 
they were imbued with humanitarian ideas; many of them 
hated serfdom, and they wanted the introduction of consti- 
tutional guarantees; while a few of them (Pestel, Ryleef), 
despairing of monarchy, spoke of a return to the republican 
federalism of old Russia. With such ends in view, they 
created their secret societies. 

It is known how this conspiracy ended. After the sudden 
death of Alexander I. in the South of Russia, the oath of 
allegiance was given at St. Petersburg to his brother Con- 
stantine, who was proclaimed his successor. But when, a 
few days later, it became known in the capital that Constan- 
tine had abdicated, and that his brother Nicholas was going 
to become emperor, and when the conspirators learned that 
they had been denounced in the meantime to the State police, 
they saw nothing else to do but to proclaim their programme 
openly in the streets, and to fall in an unequal fight. They did 
so, on December 14 (26), 1825, in the Senate Square of St. 
Petersburg, followed by a few hundred men from several 
regiments of the guard. Five of the insurgents were hanged 
by Nicholas L, and the remainder, i, e.y about a hundred 
young men who represented the flower of Russian intelligence, 
were sent to hard labour in Siberia, where they remained till 
1856. One can hardly imagine what it meant, in a country 
which was not over-rich in educated and well-intentioned 
men, when such a number of the best representatives of a 
generation were taken out of the ranks and reduced to 
silence. Even in a more civilised country of Western Europe 
the sudden disappearance of so many men of thought and 
action would have dealt a severe blow to progress. In 
Russia the effect was disastrous — the more so as the reign 
of Nicholas I. lasted thirty years, during which every spark 
of free thought was stifled as soon as it appeared. 



36 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

One of the most brilliant literary representatives of the 
"Decembrists" was Ryleef (1795-1826), one of the five 
who were hanged by Nicholas I. He had received a good 
education, and in 18 14 was already an officer. He was thus 
by a few years the elder of Pushkin. He twice visited France, 
in 18 14 and 18 15, and after the conclusion of peace became 
a magistrate at St. Petersburg. His earlier productions were 
a series of ballads dealing with the leading men of Russian 
history. Most of them were merely patriotic, but some al- 
ready revealed the sympathies of the poet for freedom. 
Censorship did not allow these ballads to be printed, but 
they circulated all over Russia in manuscript. Their poetical 
value was not great; but the next poem of Ryleef, Voin- 
arovsky, and especially some fragments of unfinished poems, 
revealed In him a powerful poetical gift, which Ryleef's 
great friend, Pushkin, greeted with effusion. It is greatly to 
be regretted that the poem Voinarovsky has never been 
translated Into English. Its subject Is the struggle of Little 
Russia for the recovery of Its Independence under Peter I. 
When the Russian Tsar was engaged In a bitter struggle 
against the great northern warrior, Charles XII., then the 
ruler of Little Russia, the hetman Mazepa conceived the 
plan of joining Charles XII. against Peter I. for freeing his 
mother country from the Russian yoke. Charles XII., as Is 
known, was defeated at Poltava, and both he and the hetman 
had to flee to Turkey. As to Voinarovsky, a young patriot 
friend of Mazepa, he was taken prisoner, and transported 
to Siberia. There, at Yakutsk, he was visited by the historian 
Miiller, and Ryleeff makes him tell his story to the German 
explorer. The scenes of nature In Siberia, at Yakutsk, with 
which the poem begins ; the preparations for the war In Little 
Russia and the war Itself; the flight of Charles XII. and 
Mazepa; then the sufferings of Voinarovsky at Yakutsk, 
when his young wife came to rejoin him In the land of 
exile, and died there — all these scenes are most beautiful, 
while In places the verses, by their simplicity and the beauty 
of their Images, evoked the admiration even of Pushkin. 
Two or three generations have now read this poem, and 
It continues to Inspire each new one with the same love of 
liberty and hatred of oppression. 



PART II 

Pushkin — LermontofF 



CHAPTER II 

PUSHKIN AND LERMONTOFF 

PUSHKIN: Beauty of form— Pushkin and Schiller— His youth; 
his exile; his later career and death — Fairy tales: Rusldn and 
Ludmila-j-liis Ivrlcs — *' Byronism " — Drama — Evgheniy Onye- 
^///■;z— LERMONTOFF: Pushkin or Lermontoff ?— His life 
— The Caucasus — Poetry of Nature — Influence of Shelley — The 
Demon — Mtzyri — Love of freedom — His death — Pushkin 
and Lermontoff as prose-writers — Other poets and novelists of 
the same epoch. 

PUSHKIN 

PUSHKIN is not quite a stranger to English readers. 
In a valuable collection of review articles dealing with 
Russian writers which Professor Coolidge, of Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, put at my disposal, I found that 
in 1832, and later on in 1845, Pushkin was spoken of as a 
writer more or less familiar in England, and translations of 
some of his lyrics were given in the reviews. Later on Push- 
kin was rather neglected in Russia itself, and the more so 
abroad, and up to the present time there is no English trans- 
lation, worthy of the great poet, of any of his works. In 
France, on the contrary — owing to Turgueneff and Prosper 
Merlmee, who saw in Pushkin one of the great poets of man- 
kind — as well as In Germany, all the chief works of the 
Russian poet are known to literary men in good transla- 
tions, of which some are admirable. To the great reading 
public the Russian poet is, however, nowhere well known 
outside his own mother country. 

The reason why Pushkin has not become a favourite with 
West European readers is easily understood. His lyric verse 
is certainly inimitable: it is that of a great poet. His chief 

39 



40 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

novel In verse, Evgheniy Onyeghin, Is written with an easi- 
ness and a lightness of style, and a picturesqueness of detail, 
which makes It stand unique In European literature. His 
renderings in verses of Russian popular tales are delightful 
reading. But, apart from his very latest productions In the 
dramatic style, there Is In whatever Pushkin wrote none of 
the depth and elevation of Ideas which characterised Goethe 
and Schiller, Shelley, Byron, and Browning, Victor Hugo 
and Barbler. The beauty of form, the happy ways of ex- 
pression, the incomparable command of verse and rhyme, 
are his main points — not the beauty of his ideas. And what 
we look for In poetry Is always the higher Inspiration, the 
noble ideas which can help to make us better. In reading 
Pushkin's verses the Russian reader Is continually brought 
to exclaim: "How beautifully this has been told! It could 
not. It ought not, to be told In a different way." In this beauty 
of form Pushkin Is Inferior to none of the greatest poets. 
In his ways of expressing even the most insignificant remarks, 
and describing the most insignificant details of everyday life; 
In the variety of human feeling that he has expressed, and 
the delicate expression of love under a variety of aspects 
which Is contained in his poetry; and finally, In the way he 
deeply Impressed his own personality upon everything he 
wrote — he is certainly a great poet. 

It Is extremely Interesting to compare Pushkin with Schil- 
ler, In their lyrics. Leaving aside the greatness and the 
variety of subjects touched upon by Schiller, and comparing 
only those pieces of poetry In which both poets speak of 
themselves, one feels at once that Schiller's personality is 
Infinitely superior, in depth of thought and philosophical 
comprehension of life, to that of the bright, somewhat spoiled 
and rather superficial child that Pushkin was. But, at the 
same time, the Individuality of Pushkin Is more deeply Im- 
pressed upon his writings than that of Schiller upon his. 
Pushkin was full of vital Intensity, and his own self Is re- 
flected In everything he wrote; a human heart, full of fire, 
is throbbing Intensely In all his verses. This heart is far less 
sympathetic than that of Schiller, but It Is more Intimately 
revealed to the reader. In his best lyrics Schiller did not 
find either a better expression of feeling, or a greater variety 



PUSHKIN 41 

of expression, than Pushkin did. In that respect the Russian 
poet decidedly stands by the side of Goethe. 

Pushkin was born in an aristocratic family at Moscow. 
Through his mother he had African blood in his veins: she 
was a beautiful Creole, the granddaughter of a negro who 
had been in the service of Peter I. His father was a typical 
representative of the noblemen of those times: squandering 
a large fortune, living all his life anyhow and anyway, 
amidst feasts, in a house half-furnished and half-empty; 
fond of the lighter French literature of the time, fond of 
entering into a discussion upon anything that he had just 
learned from the encyclopaedists, and bringing together at 
his house all possible notabilities of literature, Russian and 
French, who happened to be at Moscow. 

Pushkin's grandmother and his old nurse were the future 
poet's best friends in his childhood. From them he got his 
perfect mastership of the Russian language; and from his 
nurse, with whom he used to spend, later on, the long 
winter nights at his country house, when he was ordered by 
the State police to reside on his country estate, he borrowed 
that admirable knowledge of Russian folk-lore and Russian 
ways of expression which rendered his poetry and prose so 
wonderfully Russian. To these two women we thus owe the 
creation of the modern, easy, pliable Russian language which 
Pushkin introduced into our literature. 

He w^as educated at St. Petersburg, at the Tsarskoe Selo 
Lyceum, and even before he left school he became renowned 
as a most extraordinary poet, in whom Derzhavin recognised 
more than a mere successor, and whom Zhukovsky presented 
was his portrait bearing the following Inscription : " To a 
pupil, from his defeated teacher." Unfortunately, Pushkin's 
passionate nature drew him away from both the literary 
circles and the circles of his best friends — the Decembrists 
Puschin and Kiichelbecker — Into the circles of the lazy, In- 
significant aristocrats, amongst whom he spent his vital 
energy In orgies. Something of the shallow, empty sort of 
life he lived then he has himself described In Evgheniy 
Onyeghin. 

Being friendly with the political youth who appeared six 
or seven years later, on the square of Peter I. at St. Peters- 



42 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

burg, as Insurgents against autocracy and serfdom, Pushkin 
wrote an Ode to Liberty, and numbers of small pieces of 
poetry expressing the most revolutionary Ideas, as well as 
satires against the rulers of the time. The result was that In 
1820, when he was only twenty years old, he was exiled to 
Kishlnyoff, a very small town at that time. In newly annexed 
Bessarabia, where he led the most extravagant life, even- 
tually joining a party of wandering gypsies. Happily enough 
he was permitted to leave for some time this dusty and un- 
interesting little spot, and to make. In company with the 
charming and educated family of the Rayevskys, a journey 
to the Crimea and the Caucasus, from which journey he 
brought back some of his finest lyrical works. 

In 1824, when he had rendered himself quite Impossible 
at Odessa (perhaps also from fear that he might escape to 
Greece, to join Byron), he was ordered to return to Central 
Russia and to reside at his small estate, MIkhallovskoye, in 
the province of Pskov, where he wrote his best things. On 
December 14, 1825, when the Insurrection broke out at St. 
Petersburg, Pushkin was at MIkhallovskoye; otherwise, like 
so many of his Decembrist friends, he would most certainly 
have ended his life in Siberia. He succeeded in burning all 
his papers before they could be seized by the secret police. 

Shortly after that he was allowed to return to St. Peters- 
burg: Nicholas I. undertaking to be himself the censor of 
his verses, and later on making Pushkin a chamberlain of his 
Court. Poor Pushkin had thus to live the futile life of a 
small functionary of the Winter Palace, and this life he 
certainly hated. The Court nobility and bureaucracy could 
never pardon him that he, who did not belong to their circle, 
was considered such a great man In Russia, and Pushkin's 
life was full of little stings to his self-respect, coming from 
these classes. He had also the misfortune to marry a lady who 
was very beautiful but did not in the least appreciate his 
genius. In 1837 he had to fight on her account a duel, in 
which he was killed, at the age of thirty-five. 

One of his earliest productions, written almost imme- 
diately after he left school, was Rusldn and Liidmila, a fairy 
tale, which he put Into beautiful verse. The dominating ele- 
ment of this poem is that wonderland where " a green oak 



PUSHKIN 43 

stands on the sea-beach, and a learned cat goes round the 
oak, — to which it is attached by a golden chain, — singing 
songs when it goes to the left, and telling tales when it goes 
to the right." It is the wedding day of Ludmila, the heroine; 
the long bridal feast comes at last to an end, and she retires 
with her husband; when all of a sudden comes darkness, 
thunder resounds, and in the storm Ludmila disappears. She 
has been carried away by the terrible sorcerer from the Black 
Sea — a folk-lore allusion, of course, to the frequent raids of 
the nomads of Southern Russia. Now, the unhappy husband, 
as also three other young men, who were formerly suitors of 
Ludmila, saddle their horses and go in search of the vanished 
bride. From their experiences the tale is made up, and it is 
full of both touching passages and very humorous episodes. 
After many adventures, Ruslan recovers his Ludmila, and 
everything ends to the general satisfaction, as folk-tales 
always do.* 

This was a most youthful production of Pushkin, but its 
effect in Russia was tremendous. Classicism, /. e. the pseudo- 
classicism which reigned then, was defeated for ever. Every- 
one wanted to have the poem, everyone retained in memory 
whole passages and even pages from it, and with this tale the 
modern Russian literature — simple, realistic in its descrip- 
tions, modest in its images and fable, earnest and slightly 
humouristic — was created. In fact, one could not imagine a 
greater simplicity in verse than that which Pushkin had 
already obtained in this poem. But to give an idea of this sim- 
plicity to English readers remains absolutely impossible so 
long as the poem is not translated by some very gifted English 
poet. Suffice it to say that, while its verses are wonderfully 
musical. It contains not one single passage in which the author 
has resorted to unusual or obsolete words — to any words, 
indeed, but those which everyone uses in common conver- 
sation. 

Thunders came upon Pushkin from the classical camp 
when this poem made Its appearance. We have only to think 

* The great composer Glinka has made of this fairy tale a most 
beautiful opera (Rustdn i Ludmila), In which Russian, Finnish, Turk- 
ish, and Oriental music are Intermingled In order to characterise 
the different heroes. 



44 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

of the Daphnes and the Chloes with which poetry used to be 
embellished at that time, and the sacerdotal attitude which 
the poet took towards his readers, to understand how 
the classical school was offended at the appearance of a poet 
who expressed his thoughts in beautiful images, without 
resorting to any of these embellishments, who spoke the 
language which everyone speaks, and related adventures fit 
for the nursery. With one cut of his sword Pushkin had freed 
literature from the ties which were keeping it enslaved. 

The tales which he had heard from his old nurse gave him 
the matter, not only for Rusldn and Ludmila, but also for 
a series of popular tales, of which the verses are so natural 
that as soon as you have pronounced one word that word 
calls up Immediately the next, and this the following, be- 
cause you cannot say the thing otherwise than In the way In 
which Pushkin has told It. "Is it not exactly so that tales 
should be told? " was asked all over Russia; and, the reply 
being In the affirmative, the fight against pseudo-classicism 
was won forever. 

This simplicity of expression characterised Pushkin in 
everything he afterwards wrote. He did not depart from It, 
even when he wrote about so-called elevated subjects, nor in 
the passionate or philosophical monologues of his latest 
dramas. It is what makes Pushkin so difficult to translate 
Into English; because, in the English literature of the nine- 
teenth century, Wordsworth Is the only poet who has written 
with the same simplicity. But, while Wordsworth applied this 
simplicity miainly to the description of the lovely and quiet 
English landscape, Pushkin spoke with the same simplicity 
of human life, and his verses continued to flow, as easy as 
prose and as free from artificial expressions, even when he 
described the most violent human passions. In his contempt 
of everything exaggerated and theatrical, and in his deter- 
mination to have nothing to do with " the lurid tragic actor 
who wields a cardboard sword," he was thoroughly Russian: 
and at the same time he powerfully contributed towards 
establishing. In both the written literature and on the stage, 
that taste for simplicity and honest expression of feeling of 
which so many examples will be given In the course of this 
book. 



PIJSHKIN 45 

The main force of Pushkin was In his lyric poetry, and the 
chief note of his lyrics was love. The terrible contradictions 
between the ideal and the real, from which deeper minds, 
like those of Goethe, or Byron," or Heine, have suffered, were 
strange to him. Pushkin was of a more superficial nature. It 
must also be said that a West-European poet has an inherit- 
ance which the Russian has not. Every country of Western 
Europe has passed through periods of great national 
struggle, during which the great questions of human de- 
velopment were at stake. Great political conflicts have pro- 
duced deep passions and resulted In tragical situations; but 
in Russia the great struggles and the religious movements 
which took place In the seventeenth century, and under 
Pugatchoff In the eighteenth, were uprisings of peasants, in 
which the educated classes took no part. The Intellectual 
horizon of a Russian poet Is thus necessarily limited. There 
is, however, something In human nature which always lives 
and appeals to every mind. This Is love, and Pushkin, In his 
lyric poetry, represented love under so many aspects. In such 
beautiful forms, and with such a variety of shades, as one 
finds In no other poet. Besides, he often gave to love an ex- 
pression so refined, so high, that his higher comprehension of 
love left as deep a stamp upon subsequent Russian literature 
as Goethe's refined types of women left In the v/orld's litera- 
ture. After Pushkin had written. It was Impossible for 
Russian poets to speak of love In a lower sense than he did. 

In Russia Pushkin has sometimes been described as a Rus- 
sian Byron. This appreciation, however. Is hardly correct. 
He certainly Imitated Byron In some of his poems, although 
the imitation became, at least In Evgheniy Onyeghin, a bril- 
liant original creation. He certainly was deeply Impressed by 
Byron's spirited protest against the conventional life of 
European society, and there was a time when. If he only 
could have left Russia, he probably would have joined Byron 
in Greece. 

But, with his light character, Pushkin could not fathom, 
and still less share, the depth of hatred and contempt 
towards post-revolutionary Europe which consumed Byron's 
heart. Pushkin's " Byronism " was superficial; and, while 
he was ready to defy " respectable " society, he knew 



46 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

neither the longings for freedom nor the hatred of hypoc- 
risy which inspired Byron. 

Altogether, Pushkin's force was not in his elevating or 
freedom-inspiring influence. His epicureanism, his education 
received from French emigres, and his life amidst the high 
and frivolous classes of St. Petersburg society, prevented 
him from taking to heart the great problems which were al- 
ready ripening in Russian life. This is why, towards the end 
of his short life, he was no longer in touch with those of 
his readers who felt that to glorify the military power of 
Russia, after the armies of Nicholas I. had crushed Poland, 
was not worthy of a poet; and that to describe the attractions 
of a St. Petersburg winter-season for a rich and idle gentle- 
man was not to describe Russian life, in which the horrors 
of serfdom and absolutism were being felt more and more 
heavily. 

Pushkin's real force was in his having created In a few 
years the Russian literary language, and having freed litera- 
ture from the theatrical, pompous style which was formerly 
considered necessary In whatever was printed In black and 
white. He was great In his stupendous powers of poetical 
creation: In his capacity of taking the commonest things of 
everyday life, or the commonest feelings of the most ordi- 
nary person, and of so relating them that the reader lived 
them through ; and, on the other side, constructing out of the 
scantiest materials, and calling to life, a whole historical 
epoch — a power of creation which, of those coming after him, 
only Tolstoy has to the same extent. Pushkin's power was 
next In his profound realism — that realism, understood in its 
best sense, which he was the first to introduce In Russia, and 
which, we shall see, became afterwards characteristic of the 
whole of Russian literature. And it Is in the broadly human- 
itarian feelings with which his best writings are permeated, 
in his bright love of life, and his respect for women. As to 
beauty of form, his verses are so *' easy " that one knows 
them by heart after having read them twice or thrice. Now 
that they have penetrated into the villages, they are the 
delight of millions of peasant children, after having been the 
delight of such refined and philosophical poets as Turgueneff. 

Pushkin also tried his hand at the drama; and, so far as 



PUSHKIN 47 

may be judged from his latest productions, Don Juan and 
The Miser-Knight, he surely would have achieved great re- 
sults had he lived to continue them. His Mermaid (Ru- 
sdlka) unfortunately remained unfinished, but its dramatic 
qualities can be judged from what Darmyzhsky has made of 
it in his opera. His historical drama, Boris Godunoff, taken 
from the times of the pretender Demetrius, is enlivened here 
and there by most beautiful scenes, some of them very amus- 
ing, and some of them containing a delicate analysis of the 
sentiments of love and ambition; but it remains rather a 
dramatic chronicle than a drama. As to The Miser-Knight, 
It shows an extraordinary power of mature talent, and con- 
tains passages undoubtedly worthy of Shakespeare; while 
Don Juan, imbued with a true Spanish atmosphere, gives a 
far better comprehension of the Don Juan type than any 
other representation of it in any literature, and has all the 
qualities of a first-rate drama. 

Towards the end of his very short life a note of deeper 
comprehension of human affairs began to appear In Push- 
kin's writings. He had had enough of the life of the higher 
classes; and, when he began to write a history of the great 
peasant uprising which took place under Pugatchoff during 
the reign of Catherine II., he began also to understand and 
to feel the Inner springs of the life of the Russian peasant- 
class. National life appeared to him under a much broader 
aspect than before. But at this stage of the development of 
his genius his career came to a premature end. He was 
killed, as already stated. In a duel with a society man. 

The most popular work of Pushkin Is his novel in verse, 
Evgheniy Onyeghin. In its form It has much In common with 
Byron's Childe Harold, but It Is thoroughly Russian, and 
contains perhaps the best description of Russian life, both In 
the capitals and on the smaller estates of noblemen In the 
country, that has ever been written In Russian literature. 
Tchaykovsky, the musician, has made of it an opera which 
enjoys a great success on the Russian stage. The hero of the 
novel, Onyeghin, is a typical representative of what society 
people were at that time. He has received a superficial edu- 
cation, partly from a French emigre, partly from a Ger- 
man teacher, and has learned " something and anyhow." At 



48 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

the age of nineteen he Is the owner of a great fortune — con- 
sisting, of course, of serfs, about whom he does not care In 
the least — and he is engulfed in the " high-life " of St. Peters- 
burg. His day begins very late, with reading scores of invi- 
tations to tea-parties, evening parties, and fancy balls. He is, 
of course, a visitor at the theatre, in which he prefers ballet 
to the clumsy productions of the Russian dramatists; and 
he spends a good deal of his day In fashionable restaurants, 
while his nights are given to balls, where he plays the part 
of a disillusioned young man, who is tired of life, and wraps 
himself in the mantle of Byronism. For some reason or other 
he is compelled to spend a summer on his estate, where he 
has for a neighbour a young poet, educated in Germany and 
full of German romanticism. They become great friends, 
and they make acquaintance with a squire's family in their 
neighbourhood. The head of the family — the old mother — 
Is admirably described. Her two daughters, Tatiana and 
Olga, are very different in nature: Olga is a quite artless 
girl, full of the joy of living, who worries herself with no 
questions, and the young poet Is madly in love with her; they 
are going to marry. As to Tatiana, she is a poetical girl, and 
Pushkin bestows on her all the wonderful powers of his 
talent, describing her as an Ideal woman: intelligent, 
thoughtful, and Inspired with vague aspirations towards 
something better than the prosaic life which she is compelled 
to live. Onyeghin produces upon her, from the first, a deep 
impression : she falls In love with him ; but he, who has made 
so many conquests In the high circles of the capital, and now 
wears the mask of disgust of life, takes no notice of the 
naive love of the poor country girl. She writes to him and 
tells him her love with great frankness and In most pathetic 
words ; but the young snob finds nothing better to do than to 
lecture her about her rashness, and seems to take great 
pleasure In turning the knife In her wound. At the same time, 
at a small country ball Onyeghin, moved by some spirit of 
mischief, begins to flirt in the most provoking way with the 
other sister, Olga. The young girl seems to be delighted with 
the attention paid to her by the gloomy hero, and the result 
Is that the poet provokes his friend to a duel. An old retired 
officer, a true duelist, Is mixed up In the affair, and Onyeghin, 



PUSHKIN 49 

who cares very much about what the country gentlemen, 
whom he pretends to despise, may say about him, accepts the 
provocation and fights the duel. He kills his poet friend and is 
compelled to leave the country. Several years pass. Tatlana, 
recovered from an illness, goes one day to the house where 
formerly Onyeghin stayed and, making friends with an old 
keeper, spends days and months reading in his library; but 
life has no attraction for her. After insistent supplication 
from her mother, she goes to Moscow, and there she marries 
an old general. This marriage brings her to St. Petersburg, 
where she plays a prominent part in the Court circles. In 
these surroundings Onyeghin meets her once more, and 
hardly recognises his Tanya In the worldly lady whom he sees 
now; he falls madly In love with her. She takes no notice of 
him, and his letters remain unanswered. At last one day he 
goes, at an unseemly hour. Into her house. He finds her read- 
ing his letters, her eyes full of tears, and makes her a 
passionate declaration of his love. To this Tatlana replies 
by a monologue which Is so beautiful that it ought to be 
quoted here. If there existed an English translation which 
rendered at least the touching simplicity of Tatlana's words, 
and consequently the beauty of the verses. A whole genera- 
tion of Russian women have cried over this monologue, as 
they were reading these lines: 

" Onyeghin, I was younger then, and better looking, I 
suppose; and I loved you "... but the love of a country 
girl offered nothing new to Onyeghin. He paid no attention 
to her. ..." Why then does he follow her now at every 
step? Why such display of his attention? Is it because she 
Is now rich and belongs to the high society, and is well 
received at Court? 

" Because my fall, in such condition. 
Would be well noted everywhere. 
And bring to you an envied reputation?" 

And she continues: 

" For me, Onyeghin, all this wealth. 
This showy tinsel of Court life. 
All my successes in the world. 
My well-appointed house and balls . . . 



50 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

For me are nought! — / gladly would 
Give up these rags, this masquerade. 
And all the brilliancy and din. 
For a small shelf of books, a garden wild. 
Our weather-beaten house so poor — 
Those very places where I met 
With you, Onyeghin, that first time; 
And for the churchyard of our village. 
Where now a cross and shady trees 
Stand on the grave of my poor nurse. 

And happiness was possible then I 
It was so near I ** . . , 

She supplicates Onyeghin to leave her. "I love you," 
she says: 

" Why should I hide from you the truth? 
But I am given to another. 
And true to him I shall remain" * 

How many thousands of young Russian women have later 
on repeated these same verses, and said to themselves : " I 
would gladly give up all these rags and all this masquerade 
of luxurious life for a small shelf of books, for life in the 
country, amidst the peasants, and for the grave of my old 
nurse In our village." How many have done it! And we 
shall see how this same type of Russian girl was developed 
still further In the novels of Turgueneff — and in Russian 
life. Was not Pushkin a great poet to have foreseen and 
predicted it? 

LERMONTOFF 

It is said that when Turgueneff and his great friend, 
Kavelin, came together — Kavelin was a very sympathetic 
philosopher and a writer upon law — a favourite theme of 
their discussions was: "Pushkin or Lermontoff?" Tur- 

*For all translations, not otherwise mentioned, It Is myself who 
is responsible. 



L^RMONTOFF 51 

gueneff, as is known, considered Pushkin one of the greatest 
poets, and especially one of the greatest artists, among men; 
while Kavelln must have insisted upon the fact that in his 
best productions Lermontoff was but slightly Inferior to 
Pushkin as an artist, that his verses were real music, while 
at the same time the inspiration of his poetry was of a much 
higher standard than that of Pushkin. When it is added that 
eight years was the entire limit of Lermontoff's literary 
career — he was killed in a duel at the age of twenty-six — 
the powers and the potentialities of this poet will be seen 
at once. 

Lermontoff had Scotch blood in his veins. At least, the 
founder of the family was a Scotchman, George Learmonth, 
who, with sixty Scotchmen and Irishmen, entered the service 
of Poland first, and afterwards, in 16 13, of Russia. The inner 
biography of the poet remains still but imperfectly known. It 
is certain that his childhood and boyhood were anything but 
happy. His mother was a lover of poetry — perhaps a poet 
herself; but he lost her when he was only three years old — 
she was only twenty-one. His aristocratic grandmother 
on the maternal side took him from his father — a poor 
army officer, whom the child worshipped — and educated 
him, preventing all intercourse between the father and the 
son. The boy was very gifted, and at the age of fourteen had 
already begun to write verses and poems — first in French, 
(like Pushkin), and soon in Russian. Schiller and Shake- 
speare and, from the age of sixteen, Byron and Shelley were 
his favourites. At the age of sixteen Lermontoff entered 
the Moscow University, from which he was, however, ex- 
cluded next year for some offence against a very uninteresting 
professor. He then entered a military school at St. Peters- 
burg, to become at the age of eighteen an officer of the 
hussars. 

A young man of twenty-two, Lermontoff suddenly became 
widely known for a piece of poetry which he wrote on the 
occasion of Pushkin's death (1837). A great poet, as well 
as a lover of liberty and a foe of oppression, was revealed at 
once in this passionate production of the young writer, of 
which the concluding verses were especially powerful. " But 
you," he wrote, " who stand, a haughty crowd, around the 



52 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

throne, You hang men of genius, of liberty, and fame ! You 
have now the law to cover you, And justice must close her lips 
before you I But there is a judgment of God, — you, dissolute 
crowd! There Is a severe judge who waits for you. You will 
not buy him by the sound of your gold. . . And, with all 
your black blood. You will not wash away the stain of the 
poet's pure blood ! " In a few days all St. Petersburg, and 
very soon all Russia, knew these verses by heart; they cir- 
culated In thousands of manuscript copies. 

For this passionate cry of his heart, Lermontoff was 
exiled at once. Only the intervention of his powerful friends 
prevented him from being marched straight to Siberia. He 
was transferred from the regiment of guards to which he 
belonged to an army regiment in the Caucasus. Lermontoff 
was already acquainted with the Caucasus: he had been 
taken there as a child of ten, and he had brought back from 
this sojourn an ineffaceable Impression. Now the grandeur 
of the great mountain range Impressed him still more forci- 
bly. The Caucasus is one of the most beautiful regions on 
earth. It is a chain of mountains much greater than the Alps, 
surrounded by endless forests, gardens, and steppes, situated 
in a sounthern climate, in a dry region where the trans- 
parency of the air enhances immensely the natural beauty 
of the mountains. The snow-clad giants are seen from 
the Steppes scores of miles away, and the Immensity of the 
chain produces an impression which is equalled nowhere In 
Europe. Moreover, a half-tropical vegetation clothes the 
mountain slopes, where the villages nestle, with their semi- 
military aspect and their turrets, basking in all the gorgeous 
sunshine of the East, or concealed In the dark shadows of 
the narrow gorges, and populated by a race of people among 
the most beautiful of Europe. Finally, at the time Lermon- 
toff was there the mountaineers were fighting against the 
Russian invaders with unabated courage and daring for 
each valley of their native mountains. 

All these natural beauties of the Caucasus have been re- 
flected in Lermontoff's poetry, in such a way that in no other 
literature are there descriptions of nature so beautiful, or so 
Impressive and correct. Bodenstedt, his German translator 
and personal friend, who knew the Caucasus well, was quite 



LJ^RMONTOFF 53 

right In observing that they are worth volumes of geographi- 
cal descriptions. The reading of many volumes about the 
Caucasus does not add any concrete features to those which 
are impressed upon the mind by reading the poems of Ler- 
montoft. Turgueneff quotes somewhere Shakespeare^s de- 
scription of the sea as seen from the cliffs of Dover (in King 
Lear), as a masterpiece of objective poetry dealing with 
nature. I must confess, however, that the concentration of 
attention upon small details in this description does not 
appeal to my mind. It gives no impression of the immensity 
of the sea as seen from the Dover cliffs, nor of the won- 
derful richness of colour displayed by the waters on a 
sunny day. No such reproach could ever be made against 
Lermontoff's poetry of nature. Bodenstedt truly says that 
Lermontoff has managed to satisfy at the same time both 
the naturalist and the lover of art. Whether he describes 
the gigantic chain, where the eye loses itself — here in snow 
clouds, there in the unfathomable depths of narrow gorges; 
or whether he mentions some detail: a mountain stream, 
or the endless woods, or the smiling valleys of Georgia 
covered with flowers, or the strings of light clouds floating 
in the dry breezes of Northern Caucasia, — he always 
remains so true to nature that his picture rises before the 
eye In life-colours, and yet it is Imbued with a poetical 
atmosphere which makes one feel the freshness of these 
mountains, the balm of their forests and meadows, the purity 
of the air. And all this Is written in verses wonderfully 
musical. Lermontoff's verses, though not so " easy " as Push- 
kin's, are very often even more musical. They sound like a 
beautiful melody. The Russian language is always rather 
melodious, but in the verses of Lermontoff It becomes 
almost as melodious as Italian. 

The intellectual aspect of Lermontoff Is nearer to Shelley 
than to any other poet. He was deeply impressed by the 
author of Prometheus Bound; but he did not try to imitate 
Shelley. In his earliest productions he did indeed Imitate 
Pushkin and Pushkin's Byronism; but he very soon struck 
a line of his own. All that can be said is, that the mind 
of Lermontoff was disquieted by the same great problems 
of Good and Evil struggling in the human heart, as in 



54 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

the universe at large, which disquieted Shelley. Like 
Shelley among the poets, and like Schopenhauer among 
the philosophers, he felt the coming of that burning need 
of a revision of the moral principles now current, so 
characteristic of our own times. He embodied these ideas 
in two poems, The Demon and Mtsyri, which complete each 
other. The leading idea of the first Is that of a fierce soul 
which has broken with both earth and heaven, and looks 
with contempt upon all who are moved by petty passions. 
An exile from paradise and a hater of human virtues, he 
knows these petty passions, and despises them with all his 
superiority. The love of this demon towards a Georgian girl 
who takes refuge from his love In a convent, and dies there 
— what more unreal subject could be chosen? And yet, on 
reading the poem, one Is struck at every line by Its Incredible 
wealth of purely realistic, concrete descriptions of scenes 
and of human feelings, all of the most exquisite beauty. The 
dance of the girl at her Georgian castle before the wedding, 
the encounter of the bridegroom with robbers and his death, 
the galloping of his faithful horse, the sufferings of the bride 
and her retirement to a convent, nay, the love Itself of the 
demon and every one of the demon's movements — this Is of 
the purest realism In the highest sense of the word: that 
realism with which Pushkin had stamped Russian literature 
once and for all. 

Mtsyri is the cry of a young soul longing for liberty. A 
boy, taken from a Circassian village, from the mountains, 
is brought up in a small Russian monastery. The monks think 
that they have killed In him all human passions and long- 
ings; but the dream of his childhood Is — be it only once, be 
it only for a moment — to see his native mountains where 
his sisters sang round his cradle, and to press his burning 
bosom against the heart of one who Is not a stranger. One 
night, when a storm rages and the monks are praying In 
fear In their church, he escapes from the monastery, and 
wanders for three days In the woods. For once In his life he 
enjoys a few moments of liberty; he feels all the energy and 
all the forces of his youth : " As for me, I was like a wild 
beast," he says afterwards, " and I was ready to fight with 
the storm, the lightning, the tiger of the forest." But, being 



L^RMONTOFF 55 

an exotic plant, weakened by education, he does not find his 
way to his native country. He Is lost In the forests which 
spread for hundreds of miles round him, and Is found a few 
days later, exhausted, not far from the monastery. He dies 
from the wounds which he has received in a fight with a 
leopard. 

" The grave does not frighten me," he says to the old 
monk who attends him. " Suffering, they say, goes to sleep 
there In the eternal cold stillness. But I regret to part with 
life .... I am young, still young .... hast thou ever 
known the dreams of youth? Or hast thou forgotten how thou 
once lovedst and hatedst? Maybe, this beautiful world has 
lost for thee Its beauty. Thou art weak and grey; thou hast 
lost all desires. No matter! Thou hast lived once; thou hast 
something to forget in this world. Thou hast lived — I might 
have lived, too ! " And he tells about the beauty of the nature 
which he saw when he had run away, his frantic joy at feeling 
free, his running after the lightning, his fight with a leopard. 
'* Thou wishest to know what I did while I was free? — I 
lived, old man! I lived! And my life, without these three 
happy days, would have been gloomier and darker than thy 
powerless old age ! " But It is Impossible to tell all the 
beauties of this poem. It must be read, and let us hope that a 
good translation of It will be published some day. 

Lermontoff's demonism or pessimism was not the pessi- 
mism of despair, but a militant protest against all that Is 
ignoble in life, and in this respect his poetry has deeply im- 
pressed itself upon all our subsequent literature. His pessi- 
mism w^as the irritation of a strong man at seeing others 
round him so weak and so base. With his Inborn feeling of 
the Beautiful, which evidently can never exist without the 
True and the Good, and at the same time surrounded — espe- 
cially in the worldly spheres he lived in, and on the Caucasus 
— by men and women who could not or did not dare to 
understand him, he might easily have arrived at a pessimistic 
contempt and hatred of mankind; but he always maintained 
his faith In the higher qualities of man. It was quite natural 
that in his youth — especially in those years of universal reac- 
tion, the thirties — Lermontoff should have expressed his 
discontent with the world in such a general and abstract crea- 



S6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

tlon as Is The Demon, Something similar we find even with 
Schiller. But gradually his pessimism took a more concrete 
form. It was not mankind altogether, and still less heaven 
and earth, that he despised in his latter productions, but the 
negative features of his own generation. In his prose novel. 
The Hero of our Own Time, In his Thoughts (Duma)^ etc., 
he perceived higher ideals, and already In 1840 — i. e., one 
year before his death — he seemed ready to open a new page 
In his creation. In which his powerfully constructive and criti- 
cal mind would have been directed towards the real evils of 
actual life, and real, positive good would apparently have 
been his aim. But It was at this very moment that, like Push- 
kin, he fell In a duel. 

Lermontoff was, above all, a *' humanist,'' — a deeply 
humanitarian poet. Already at the age of twenty-three, he 
had written a poem from the times of John the Terrible, 
Song about the Merchant Kaldshnikoff, which Is rightly con- 
sidered as one of the best gems of Russian literature, both for 
Its powers, Its artistic finish, and Its wonderful epic style. The 
poem, which produced a great Impression when It became 
known In Germany In Bodenstedt's translation. Is Imbued 
with the fiercest spirit of revolt against the courtiers of the 
Terrible Tsar. 

Lermontoff deeply loved Russia, but not the official 
Russia : not the crushing military power of a fatherland, 
which Is so dear to the so-called patriots, and he wrote : 

/ love my fatherland; but strange that love, 

In spite of all my reasoning may say; 

Its glory, bought by shedding streams of bloody 

Its quietness, so full of fierce disdain, 

And the traditions of its gloomy past. 

Do not awake in me a happy vision. . . . 

What he loved In Russia was Its country life. Its plains, the 
life of Its peasants. He was Inspired at the same time with a 
deep love towards the natives of the Caucasus, who were 
waging their bitter fight against the Russians for their liberty. 
Himself a Russian, and a member of two different expeditions 
against the Circassians, his heart throbbed nevertheless in 



Ll^RMONTOFF 57 

sympathy with that brave, warm-hearted people in their 
struggle for independence. One poem, Izinail-Bey, is an 
apotheosis of this struggle of the Circassians against the Rus- 
sians; in another, one of his best — a Circassian is described 
as fleeing from the field of battle to run home to his 
village, and there his mother herself repudiates him as a 
traitor. Another gem of poetry, one of his shorter poems, 
F alert k, is considered by those who know what real warfare 
is as the most correct description of it in poetry. And yet, 
Lermontoff disliked war, and he ends one of his admirable 
descriptions of fighting with these lines :• 

"I thought: How miserable is man! What does he want? The 
sky is pure, and under it there's room for all ; but without reason and 
necessity, his heart is full of hatred. — ^Why?" 

He died in his twenty-seventh year. Exiled for a second 
time to the Caucasus (for a duel which he had fought at St. 
Petersburg with a Barrante, the son of the French ambassa- 
dor), he was staying at Pyatigorsk, frequenting the shallow 
society which usually comes together in such watering places. 
His jokes and sarcasms addressed to an officer, Martynoff, 
who used to drape himself in a Byronian mantle the better to 
capture the hearts of young girls, led to a duel. Lermontoff, 
as he had already done in his first duel, shot sideways pur- 
posely; but Martynoff slowly and purposely took his aim so 
as even to call forth the protests of the seconds — and killed 
Lermontoff on the spot. 

PUSHKIN AND LERMONTOFF AS PR0SE-V7RITERS 

Towards the end of his life Pushkin gave himself more and 
more to prose writing. He began an extensive history of the 
peasant uprising of 1773 under Pugatchoff, and undertook 
for that purpose a journey to East Russia, where he collected, 
besides public documents, personal reminiscences and popular 
traditions relating to this uprising. At the same time he also 
wrote a novel. The Captain's Daughter, the scene of which 
was laid in that disturbed period. The novel is not very 
remarkable in itself. True, the portraits of Pugatchoff and of 



58 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

an old servant, as well as the description of the whole life 
in the small forts of East Russia, garrisoned at that time by 
only a few Invalid soldiers, are very true to reality and bril- 
liantly pictured; but in the general construction of the novel 
Pushkin paid a tribute to the sentlmentalism of the times. 
Nevertheless, The Captain's Daughter, and especially the 
other prose novels of Pushkin, have played an important part 
In the history of Russian literature. Through them Pushkin 
, Introduced into Russia the realistic school, long before 
Balzac did so in France, and this school has since that time 
prevailed In Russian prose-literature. I do not mean, of 
course, Realism In the sense of dwelling mainly upon the 
lowest Instincts of man, as It was misunderstood by some 
French writers, but In the sense of treating both high and 
low manifestations of human nature In a way true to reality, 
and in their real proportions. Moreover, the simplicity of 
these novels, both as regards their plots and the way the 
plots are treated, is simply marvellous, and in this way they 
have traced the lines upon which the development of Russian 
novel writing has ever since been pursued. The novels of 
Lermontoff, of Herzen (Whose Fault? )^ and of Turgueneff 
and Tolstoy descend, I dare to say, in a much more direct 
line from Pushkin's novels than from those of Gogol. 

Lermontoff also wrote one novel in prose. The Hero of our 
Own Time, of which the hero, Petchorin, was to some ex- 
tent a real representative of a portion of the educated society 
in those years of romanticism. It is true that some critics 
saw in him the portraiture of the author himself and his 
acquaintances; but, as Lermontoff wrote in his preface to 
a second edition of this novel — " The hero of our own 
time is indeed a portrait, but not of one single man: it 
is the portrait of the vices of our generation," — the 
book indicates " the Illness from which this generation 
suffers." 

Petchorin is an extremely clever, bold, enterprising man 
who regards his surroundings with cold contempt. He is 
undoubtedly a superior man, superior to Pushkin's Onyeghin; 
but he Is, above all, an egotist who finds no better application 
for his superior capacities than all sorts of mad adventures, 
always connected with love-making. He falls in love with a 



Ll^RMONTOFF 59 

Circassian girl whom he sees at a native festival. The girl is 
also taken by the beauty and the gloomy aspect of the Rus- 
sian. To marry her is evidently out of question, because her 
Mussulman relatives would never give her to a Russian. 
Then, Petchorin daringly kidnaps her, with the aid of her 
brother, and the girl is brought to the Russian fort, where 
Petchorin is an officer. For several weeks she only cries and 
never speaks a word to the Russian, but by and bye she 
feels love for him. That is the beginning of the tragedy. 
Petchorin soon has enough of the Circassian beauty; he 
deserts her more and more for hunting adventures, and dur- 
ing one of them she is kidnapped by a Circassian who loves 
her, and who, on seeing that he cannot escape with her, kills 
her with his dagger. For Petchorin this solution is almost 
welcome. 

A few years later the same Petchorin appears amidst Rus- 
sian society in one of the Caucasus watering towns. There 
he meets with Princess Mary, who is courted by a young man 
— Grushnisky, — a sort of Caucasian caricature of Byron, 
draped in a mantle of contempt for mankind, but In reality a 
very shallow sort of personage. Petchorin, who cares but 
little for the Princess Mary, finds, however, a sort of wicked 
pleasure in rendering Grushnitsky ridiculous in her eyes, and 
uses all his wit to bring the girl to his feet. When this is done, 
he loses all interest in her. He makes a fool of Grushnitsky, 
and when the young man provokes him to a duel, he kills him. 
This was the hero of the time, and it must be owned that it 
was not a caricature. In a society free from care about the 
means of living — it was of course in serfdom times, under 
Nicholas I. — when there was no sort of political life in the 
country, a man of superior ability very often found no issue 
for his forces but in such adventures as Petchorin's. 

It need not be said that the novel Is admirably written — 
that it IS full of living descriptions of Caucasus " society"; 
that the characters are splendidly delineated, and that some 
of them, like the old Captain Maxim Maximytch, have re- 
mained living types of some of the best specimens of mankind. 
Through these qualities The Hero of our own Time, like 
Evgheniy Onyeghin, became a model for quite a series of 
subsequent novels. 



6o RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

OTHER POETS AND NOVELISTS OF THE SAME EPOCH 
KRYLOFF 

The fable-writer Kryloff (1768-1844) is perhaps the 
Russian writer who is best known abroad. English readers 
know him through the excellent work and translations of so 
great a connoisseur of Russian literature and language as 
Ralston was, and little can be added to what Ralston has said 
of this eminently original writer. 

He stands on the boundary between two centuries, and 
reflects both the end of the one and the beginning of the other. 
Up to 1807 he wrote comedies which, even more than the 
other comedies of the time, were mere imitations from the 
French. It was only in 1 807-1 809 that he found his true voca- 
tion and began writing fables, In which domain he attained 
the first rank, not only In Russia, but among the fable-writers 
In all modern literatures. Many of his fables — at any rate, 
the best known ones — are translations from Lafontalne; and 
yet they are entirely original productions. Lafontalne's ani- 
mals are academically educated French gentlemen; even the 
peasants In his fables come from Versailles. There Is nothing 
of the sort In Kryloff. Every animal In his fables Is a charac- 
ter — wonderfully true to life. Nay, even the cadence of his 
verses changes and takes a special aspect each time a new ani- 
mal is introduced — that heavy simpleton, the Bear, or the 
fine and cunning Fox, or the versatile Monkey. Kryloff knew 
every one of them Intimately; he knew each of their move- 
ments, and above all he had noticed and enjoyed long since 
in his own self the humorous side of every one of the 
dwellers of the forests or the companions of Man, before 
he undertook to put them In his fables. This Is why Krydoff 
may be taken as the greatest fable-writer not only of Russia 
— where he had a not to be neglected rival In Dmitreff 
(1760- 1 83 7) — but also of all nations of modem times. 
True, there Is no depth, no profound and cutting irony. In 
Kryloff's fables. Nothing but a good-natured, easy-going 
irony, which made the very essence of his heavy frame, his 
lazy habits, and his quiet contemplation. But, is this not the 
true domain of fable, which must not be confounded with 
satire? 



L^RMONTOFF 6i 

xA.t the same time there is no writer who has better pos- 
sessed and better understood the true essence of the really 
popular Russian language, the language spoken by the men 
and women of the people. At a time when the Russian lit- 
terateurs hesitated between the elegant, Europeanlsed style of 
Karamzin, and the clumsy, half-Slavonic style of the nation- 
alists of the old school, Kryloff, even in his very first fables, 
written in 1807, had already worked out a style which at 
once gave him a quite unique position In Russian literature, 
and which has not been surpassed even by such masters of the 
popular Russian language as was Ostrovskly and some of the 
folk-novelists of a later epoch. For terseness, expressive- 
ness and strict adherence to the true spirit of the popularly- 
spoken Russian, Kryloff has no rivals. 

THE MINOR POETS 

Several minor poets, contemporary of Pushkin and Ler- 
montoflf, and some of them their personal friends, must be 
mentioned in this place. The influence of Pushkin was so 
great that he could not but call to life a school of writers who 
should try to follow in his steps. None of them reached such 
a height as to claim to be considered a world poet ; but each 
of them has made his contribution in one way or another to 
the development of Russian poetry, each one has had his 
humanising and elevating influence. 

KozLOFF (1779-1840) has reflected in his poetry the ex- 
tremely sad character of his life. At the age of about forty he 
was stricken with paralysis, losing the use of his legs, and 
soon after that his sight; but his poetical gift remained with 
him, and he dictated to his daughter some of the saddest 
elegies which Russian literature possesses, as also a great 
number of our most perfect translations. His Monk made 
everyone in Russia shed tears, and Pushkin hastened to ac- 
knowledge the strength of the poem. Endowed with the 
most wonderful memory — he knew by heart all Byron, all 
the poems of Walter Scott, all Racine, Tasso, and Dante, — 
Kozloff, like Zhukovskiy, with whom he had much in com- 
mon, made a great number of translations from various 
languages, especially from the English idealists, and some of 



62 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

his translations from the Polish, such as The Crimean Son- 
nets of MIckiewicz, are real works of art. 

Delwig ( 1 798-1 831) was a great personal friend of 
Pushkin, whose comrade he was at the Lyceum. He repre- 
sented In Russian literature the tendency towards reviving 
ancient Greek forms of poetry, but happily enough he tried 
at the same time to write In the style of the Russian popular 
songs, and the lyrics which he wrote In this manner especially 
contributed to make of him a favourite poet of his own time. 
Some of his romances have remained popular till now. 

Baratynskiy ( 1 800-1 844) was another poet of the same 
group of friends. Under the Influence of the wild nature of 
Finland, where he spent several years In exile, he became a 
romantic poet, full of the love of nature, and also of melan- 
choly, and deeply Interested In philosophical questions, to 
which he could find no reply. He thus lacked a definite con- 
ception of life, but what he wrote was clothed in a beautiful 
form, and in very expressive, elegant verses. 

Yazykoff ( 1 803-1 846) belongs to the same circle. He 
was intimate with Pushkin, who much admired his verses. It 
must be said, however, that the poetry of Yazykoff had 
chiefly an historical influence in the sense of perfecting the 
forms of poetical expression. Unfortunately, he had to 
struggle against almost continual Illness, and he died just 
when he had reached the full development of his talent. 

Venevitinoff (1805-1822) died at a still younger age; 
but there is no exaggeration in saying that he promised to 
become a great poet, endowed with the same depth of 
philosophical conception as was Goethe, and capable of 
attaining the same beauty of form. The few verses he wrote 
during the last year of his life revealed the suddenly attained 
maturity of a great poetical talent, and may be compared 
with the verses of the greatest poets. 

Prince Alexander Odoevskiy (1803-1839) and 
PolezhAeff (1806- 1 83 8) are two other poets who died 
very young, and whose lives were entirely broken by political 
persecution. Odoevskiy was a friend of the Decembrists. 
After the 14th of December, 1825, he was arrested, taken to 
the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, and then sentenced to 
hard labour in Siberia, whence he was not released till twelve 



Ll^RMONTOFF 63 

years later, to be sent as a soldier to the Caucasus. There he 
became the friend of Lermontoff, one of whose best elegies 
was written on Odoevskiy's death. The verses of Odoevskiy 
(they were not printed abroad while he lived) lack finish, but 
he was a real poet and a patriot too, as is seen from his 
Dream of a Poet, and his historical poem, Vasilko. 

The fate of PolezhAeff was even more tragic. He was 
only twenty years old — a brilliant student of the Moscow 
University — when he wrote an autobiographical poem, 
Sdshka, full of allusions to the evils of autocracy and of 
appeals for freedom. This poem was shown to Nicholas I., 
who ordered the young poet to be sent as a soldier to an army 
regiment. The duration of service was then twenty-five years, 
and Polezhaeff saw not the slightest chance of release. More 
than that: for an unauthorised absence from his regiment 
(he had gone to Moscow with the Intention of presenting a 
petition of release to the Tsar) he was condemned to receive 
one thousand strokes with the sticks, and only by mere luck 
escaped the punishment. He never succumbed to his fate, and 
In the horrible barracks of those times he remained what he 
was: a pupil of Byron, Lamartlne, and Macpherson, never 
broken, protesting against tyranny In verses that were written 
in tears and blood. When he was dying from consumption In 
a military hospital at Moscow Nicholas I. pardoned him: 
his promotion to the grade of officer came when he was dead. 

A similar fate befell the Little Russian poet Shevchenko 
(1814-1861), who, for some of his poetry, was sent in 
1847 ^^ ^ battalion as a common soldier. His epical poems 
from the life of the free Cossacks In olden times, heart rend- 
ing poems from the life of the serfs, and lyrics, all written In 
Little Russian and thoroughly popular In both form and con- 
tent, belong to the fine specimens of poetry of all nations. 

Of prose writers of the same epoch only a few can be men- 
tioned in this book, and these in a few lines. Alexander 
Bestuzheff ( 1 797-1 837), who wrote under the nom de 
plume of Marlinskiy — one of the " Decembrists," exiled 
to Siberia, and later on sent to the Caucasus as a soldier — was 
the author of very widely-read novels. Like Pushkin and Ler- 
montoff he was under the Influence of Byron, and described 
*' titanic passions " In Byron's style, as also striking adven- 



64 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

tures In the style of the French novelists of the Romantic 
school ; but he deserves at the same time to be regarded as the 
first to write novels from Russian life In which matters of 
social Interest were discussed. 

Other favourite novelists of the same epoch were: 
Zagoskin (1789- 1 852), the author of extremely popular 
historical novels, Yuriy Milosldvskiy, Roslavleff, etc., all 
written in a sentimentally patriotic style; Naryezhnyi 
(1780-1825), who Is considered by some Russian critics as a 
forerunner of Gogol, because he wrote already In the realistic 
style, describing, like Gogol, the dark sides of Russian life; 
and Lazhechnikoff (1792-1868), the author of a number 
of very popular historical novels from Russian life. 



PART III 
Gogol 



CHAPTER III 

GOGOL 

LITTLE RVSSlA^Nights on a Farm near Dikonka, and M/r- 
gorod — Village life and humour — How Ivan Ivdnovitch quar- 
relled with Ivan Nikiforytch — Historical novel, Tards Bulba — 
The Cloak — Drama, The Inspector-General — Its influence — 
Dead Souls: main types — Realism in the Russian novel. 

WITH Gogol begins a new period of Russian litera- 
ture, which Is called by Russian literary critics " the 
Gogol period," and which lasts to the present date. 

Gogol was not a Great Russian. He was bom In 1809, In 
a Little Russian or Ukrainian nobleman's family. His father 
had already displayed some literary talent and wrote a few 
comedies In Little Russian, but Gogol lost him at an early 
age. The boy was educated In a small provincial town, which 
he left, however, while still young, and when he was only 
nineteen he was already at St. Petersburg. At that time the 
dream of his life was to become an actor, but the manager 
of the St. Petersburg Imperial theatres did not accept him, 
and Gogol had to look for another sphere of activity. The 
Civil Service, in which he obtained the position of a subordi- 
nate clerk, was evidently insufficient to Interest him, and he 
soon entered upon his literary career. 

His debut was In 1829, with little novels taken from the 
village-life of Little Russia. Nights on a Farm near Di- 
kdnka, soon followed by another series of stories entitled Mir- 
gorod, Immediately won for him literary fame and Introduced 
him Into the circle of Zhukovskly and Pushkin. The two poets 
at once recognised Gogol's genius, and received him with 
open arms. 

Little Russia differs considerably from the central parts 
of the empire, i. e., from the country round Moscow, which 
is known as Great Russia. It has a more southern position, 

67 



68 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

and everything southern has always a certain attraction 
for northerner. The villages In Little Russia are not dis- 
posed In streets as they are In Great Russia, but the white- 
washed houses are scattered, as In Western Europe, In 
separate little farms, each of which Is surrounded by charm- 
ing little gardens. The more genial climate, the warm nights, 
the musical language, the beauty of the race, which probably 
contains a mixture of South Slavonian with Turkish and 
Polish blood, the picturesque dress and the lyrical songs — all 
these render Little Russia especially attractive for the Great 
Russian. Besides, life In Little-Russian villages Is more poeti- 
cal than It Is In the villages of Great Russia. There Is more 
freedom In the relations between the young men and the 
young girls, who freely meet before marriage ; the stamp of 
seclusion of the women which has been Impressed by Byzan- 
tine habits upon Moscow does not exist In Little Russia, 
where the Influence of Poland was prevalent. Little Russians 
have also maintained numerous traditions and epic poems and 
songs from the times when they were free Cossacks and used 
to fight against the Poles In the north and the Turks In the 
south. Having had to defend the Greek orthodox religion 
against these two nations, they strictly adhere now to the 
Russian Church, and one does not find In their villages the 
same passion for scholastic discussions about the letter of 
the Holy Books which Is often met with In Great Russia 
among the Non-conformists. Their religion has altogether 
a more poetical aspect. 

The Little-Russian language Is certainly more melodious 
than the Great Russian, and there Is now a movement of some 
importance for Its literary development; but this evolution 
has yet to be accomplished, and Gogol very wisely wrote In 
Great Russian — that Is, In the language of Zhukovskly, 
Pushkin, and Lermontoff. We have thus in Gogol a sort of 
union between the two nationalities. 

It would be impossible to give here an Idea of the humour 
and wit contained in Gogol's novels from Little Russian life, 
without quoting whole pages. It Is the good-hearted laughter 
of a young man who himself enjoys the fulness of life and 
himself laughs at the comical positions Into which he has put 
his heroes: a village chanter, a wealthy peasant, a rural 



g(5gol 69 

matron, or a village smith. He is full of happiness; no dark 
apprehension comes to disturb his joy of life. However, those 
whom he depicts are not rendered comical in obedience to the 
poet's whim : Gogol always remains scrupulously true to real- 
ity. Every peasant, every chanter, is taken from real life, 
and the truthfulness of Gogol to reality is almost ethnographi- 
cal, without ever ceasing to be poetical. All the superstitions 
of a village life on a Christmas Eve or during a midsummer 
night, when the mischievous spirits and goblins get free till 
the cock crows, are brought before the reader, and at the 
same time we have all the wittiness which is inborn in the 
Little Russian. It w^as only later on that Gogol's comical vein 
became what can be truly described as " humour," — that is, a 
sort of contrast between comical surroundings and a sad sub- 
stratum of life, which made Pushkin say of Gogol's produc- 
tions that " behind his laughter you feel the unseen tears." 

Not all the Little-Russian tales of Gogol are taken from 
peasant life. Some deal also with the upper class of the small 
towns; and one of them. How Ivan Ivdnovitch quarrelled 
ivith Ivan Nikiforytch, is one of the most humorous tales in 
existence. Ivan Ivdnovitch and Ivan Nikiforytch were two 
neighbours who lived on excellent terms with each other ; but 
the inevitableness of their quarrelling some day appears from 
the very first lines of the novel. Ivan Ivanovitch was a person 
of fine behaviour. He would never offer snuff to an acquaint- 
ance without saying: " May I dare. Sir, to ask you to be so 
kind as to oblige yourself." He was a man of the most ac- 
curate habits ; and when he had eaten a melon he used to wrap 
its seeds in a bit of paper, and to inscribe upon it: "This 
melon was eaten on such a date," and if there had been a 
friend at his table he would add: " In the presence of Mr. 
So and So." At the same time he was, after all, a miser, who 
appreciated very highly the comforts of his own life, but did 
not care to share them with others. His neighbour, Ivan 
Nikiforytch, was quite the opposite. He was very stout and 
heavy, and fond of swearing. On a hot summer day he would 
take off all his clothes and sit in his garden, in the sunshine, 
warming his back. When he offered snuff to anyone, he would 
simply produce his snuff box saying: " Oblige yourself." He 
knew none of the refinements of his neighbour, and loudly 



70 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

expressed what he meant. It was Inevitable that two men, so 
different, whose yards were only separated by a low fence, 
should one day come to a quarrel ; and so It happened. 

One day the stout and rough Ivan Nikiforytch, seeing that 
his friend owned an old useless musket, was seized with the 
desire to possess the weapon. He had not the slightest need of 
it, but all the more he longed to have It, and this craving led 
to a feud which lasted for years. Ivan Ivanovltch remarked 
very reasonably to his neighbour that he had no need of a 
rifle. The neighbour, stung by this remark, replied that this 
was precisely the thing he needed, and offered, If Ivan Ivano- 
vltch was not disposed to accept money for his musket, to 
give him In exchange — a pig. . . . This was understood by 
Ivan Ivanovltch as a terrible offence : " How could a musket, 
which Is the symbol of hunting, of nobility, be exchanged by 
a gentleman for a pig! " Hard words followed, and the 

offended neighbour called Ivan Ivanovltch a gander 

A mortal feud, full of the most comical Incidents, resulted 
from these rash words. Their friends did everything to 
re-establish peace, and one day their efforts seemed to be 
crowned with success; the two enemies had been brought 
together — both pushed from behind by their friends; Ivan 
Ivanovltch had already put his hand Into his pocket to take 
out his snuff-box and to offer It to his enemy, when the latter 
made the unfortunate remark: "There was nothing par- 
ticular in being called a gander; no need to be offended by 
that.'' .... All the efforts of the friends were brought to 
nought by these unfortunate words. The feud was renewed 
with even greater acrimony than before ; and, tragedy always 
following In the steps of comedy, the two enemies, by taking 
the affair from one Court to another, arrived at old age 
totally ruined. 

tArAs BULBA — ^THE CLOAK 

The pearl of Gogol's Little-Russian novels Is an historical 
novel. Tar as Bulb a, which recalls to life one of the most in- 
teresting periods In the history of Little Russia — the fifteenth 
century. Constantinople had fallen Into the hands of the 
Turks; and although a mighty Polish-Lithuanian State had 
grown in the West, the Turks, nevertheless, menaced both 



g6gol 71 

Eastern and Middle Europe. Then It was that the Little 
Russians rose for the defence of Russia and Europe. They 
lived in free communities of Cossacks, over whom the Poles 
were beginning to establish feudal power. In times of peace 
these Cossacks carried on agriculture in the prairies, and fish- 
ing in the beautiful rivers of Southwest Russia, reaching at 
times the Black Sea; but every one of them was armed, and 
the whole country was divided Into regiments. As soon as 
there was a military alarm they all rose to meet an Invasion 
of the Turks or a raid of the Tartars, returning to their 
fields and fisheries as soon as the war was over. 

The whole nation was thus ready to resist the Invasions 
of the Mussulmans; but a special vanguard was kept In the 
lower course of the Dnieper, " beyond the rapids," on an 
Island which soon became famous under the name of the 
Sicha. Men of all conditions. Including runaways from their 
landlords, outlaws, and adventurers of all sorts, could come 
and settle In the Sicha without being asked any questions but 
whether they went to church. "Well, then, make the sign 
of the cross," the hetman of the Sicha said, " and join the 
division you like." The Sicha consisted of about sixty divi- 
sions, which were very similar to Independent republics, or 
rather to schools of boys, who cared for nothing and lived in 
common. None of them had anything of his own, excepting 
his arms. No women were admitted, and absolute democ- 
racy prevailed. 

The hero of the novel Is an old Cossack, Taras Bulba, who 
has himself spent many years in Sicha, but is now peace- 
fully settled inland on his farm. His two sons have been 
educated at the Academy of Kieff and return home after 
several years of absence. Their first meeting with their father 
is very characteristic. As the father laughs at the sons' long 
clothes, which do not suit a Cossack, the elder son, Ostap, 
challenges him to a good boxing fight. The father is de- 
lighted, and they fight until the old man, quite out of breath, 
exclaims : " By God, this is a good fighter; no need to test him 
further; he will be a good Cossack! — Now, son, be wel- 
come; let us kiss each other." On the very next day after their 
arrival, without letting the mother enjoy the sight of her 
sons, Taras takes them to the Sicha, which — as often hap- 



72 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

pened In those times — was quickly drawn Into war, In conse- 
quence of the exactions which the Polish landlords made upon 
the Little Russians. 

The life of the free Cossacks In the republic " beyond the 
rapids " and their ways of conducting war are wonderfully 
described; but, paying a tribute to the then current romanti- 
cism, Gogol makes Taras' younger son, a sentimentalist, fall 
In love with a noble Polish lady, during the selge of a Polish 
town, and go over to the enemy; while the father and the 
elder son continue fighting the Poles. The war lasts for a 
year or so, with varying success, till at length. In one of the 
desperate sorties of the besieged Poles, the younger son of 
Taras Is taken prisoner, and the father himself kills him for 
his treason. The elder son Is next taken prisoner by the Poles 
and carried away to Warsaw, where he perishes on the rack; 
while Taras, returning to Little Russia, raises a formidable 
army and makes one of those Invasions Into Poland with 
which the history of the two countries was filled for two cen- 
turies. Taken prisoner himself, Taras perishes at the stake, 
with a disregard of life and suffering which were character- 
istic of this strong, fighting race of men. Such Is, in brief, the 
theme of this novel, which is replete with admirable separate 
scenes. 

Read in the light of modern requirements, Taras Bulba 
certainly would not satisfy us. The influence of the Romantic 
school is too strongly felt. The younger son of Taras Is not 
a living being, and the Polish lady is entirely invented in 
order to answer the requirements of a novel, showing that 
Gogol never knew a single woman of that type. But the old 
Cossack and his son, as well as all the life of the Cossack 
camps. Is quite real; it produces the illusion of real life. The 
reader Is carried away In sympathy with old Taras, while the 
ethnographer cannot but feel that he has before him a 
wonderful combination of an ethnographical document of 
the highest value, with a poetical reproduction — only the 
more real because it is poetical — of a bygone and most 
interesting epoch. 

The Little-Russian novels were followed by a few novels 
taken from the life of Great Russia, chiefly of St. Petersburg, 



G(3gOL 73 

and two of them, The Memoirs of a Madman and The Cloak 
(Shinel) deserve a special mention. The psychology of the 
madman Is strikingly drawn. As to The Cloak, It Is In this 
novel that Gogol's laughter which conceals " unseen tears " 
shows at Its best. The poor life of a small functionary, who 
discovers with a sense of horror that his old cloak Is so worn 
out as to be unfit to stand further repairs; his hesitation 
before he ventures to speak to a tailor about a new one; his 
nervous excitement on the day that It Is ready and that he tries 
it on for the first time ; and finally his despair, amidst general 
indifference, when night-robbers have robbed him of his cloak 
— every line of this work bears the stamp of one of the great- 
est artists. Sufficient to say that this novel produced at its 
appearance, and produces still, such an impression, that since 
the times of Gogol every Russian novel-writer has been aptly 
said to have re-written The Cloak, 



THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL 

Gogol's prose-comedy. The Inspector-General (Revizor) , 
has become, in its turn, a starting point for the Russian 
drama — a model which every dramatic writer after Gogol 
has always kept before his eyes. " Revizor," in Russian, 
means some important functionary who has been sent by 
the ministry to some provincial town to inquire Into the con- 
ditions of the local administration — an Inspector-General; 
and the comedy takes place in a small town, from which 
" you may gallop for three years and yet arrive nowhere." 
The little spot — we learn it at the rising of the curtain — 
is going to be visited by an Inspector-General. The local 
head of the Police (In those times the head of the Police 
was also the head of the town) — the Gorodnichiy or Gover- 
nor — has convoked the chief functionaries of the place to 
communicate to them an important news. He has had a 
bad dream; two rats came in, sniffed and then went away; 
there must be something in that dream, and so there is; he 
has just got this morning a letter from a friend at St. Peters- 
burg, announcing that an inspector-general is coming, and — 
what Is still worse — is coming incognito ! Now, the honour- 
able Governor advises the functionaries to put some order m 



74 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

their respective offices. The patients In the hospital walk 
about In linen so dirty that you might take them for chimney 
sweeps. The chief magistrate, who is a passionate lover of 
sport, has his hunting apparel hanging about In the Court, 
and his attendants have made a poultry-yard of the entrance 
hall. In short, everything has to be put In order. The Gover- 
nor feels very uncomfortable. Up to the present day he has 
freely levied tribute upon the merchants, pocketed the money 
destined for building a church, and within a fortnight he 
has flogged the wife of a non-commissioned officer, which he 
had no right to do; and now, there's the Inspector-General 
coming! He asks the postmaster '' just to open a little '* the 
letters which may be addressed from this town to St. Peters- 
burg and. If he finds In them some reports about town matters, 
to keep them. The postmaster — a great student of human 
character — has always indulged, even without getting this 
advice. In the Interesting pastime of reading the letters, and 
he falls In with the Governor's proposal. 

At that very moment enter Petr Ivanych Dobchlnsky and 
Petr Ivanych Bobchlnsky. Everyone knows them, you 
know them very well: they play the part of the town 
Gazette. They go about the town all day long, and as soon as 
they have learnt something Interesting they both hurry to 
spread the news. Interrupting each other In telling it, and 
hurrying Immediately to some other place to be the first to 
communicate the news to someone else. They have been at 
the only inn of the town, and there they saw a very suspicious 
person: a young man, ^' who has something, you know, 
extraordinary about his face." He Is living there for a fort- 
night, never paying a penny, and does not journey any 
further. " What is his object in staying so long In town like 
ours ? " And then, when they were taking their lunch he passed 
them by and looked so inquisltiveiy in their plates — who may 
he be? Evidently, the Governor and all present conclude, he 
must be the Inspector-General who stays there Incog- 
nito. ... A general confusion results from the suspicion. 
The Governor starts immediately for the Inn, to make the 
necessary enquiries. The womenfolk are In a tremendous 
excitement. 

The stranger is simply a young man who is travelling to 



G(5gOL 75 

rejoin his father. On some post-station he met with a certain 
captain — a great master at cards — and lost all he had in 
his pocket. Now he cannot proceed any farther, and he 
cannot pay the landlord, who refuses to credit him with any 
more meals. The young man feels awfully hungry — no won- 
der he looked so inquisitively into the plates of the two 
gentlemen — and resorts to all sorts of tricks to induce the 
landlord to send him something for his dinner. Just as he is 
finishing some fossil-like cutlet enters the Gorodnichiy; and 
a most comic scene follows, the young man thinking that 
the Governor came to arrest him, and the Governor think- 
ing that he is speaking to the Inspector-General who is trying 
to conceal his identity. The Governor offers to remove the 
young man to some more comfortable place. " No, thank 
you, I have no intent to go to a jail," sharply retorts the 
young man. . . . But it is to his own house that the Gov- 
ernor takes the supposed Inspector, and now an easy life 
begins for the adventurer. All the functionaries appear In 
turn to introduce themselves, and everyone is only too happy 
to give him a bribe of a hundred roubles or so. The mer- 
chants come to ask his protection from the Governor; the 
widow who was flogged comes to lodge a complaint. . . . 
In the meantime the young man enters into a flirtation with 
both the wife and the daughter of the Governor; and, finally, 
being caught at a very pathetic moment when he is kneeling 
at the feet of the daughter, without further thought he 
makes a proposition of marriage. But, having gone so far, 
the young man, well-provided now with money, hastens to 
leave the town on the pretext of going to see an uncle; he 
will be back in a couple of days. . . . 

The delight of the Governor can easily be imagined. His 
Excellency, the Inspector-General, going to marry the Gov- 
ernor's daughter! He and his wife are already making all 
sorts of plans. They will remove to St. Petersburg, the 
Gorodnichiy will soon be a general, and you will see how 
he will keep the other Gorodnichles at his door ! . . . The 
happy news spreads about the town, and all the functionaries 
and the society of the town hasten to offer their congratula- 
tions to the old man. There is a great gathering at his 
house — when the postmaster comes in. He has followed the 



76 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

advice of the Governor, and has opened a letter which the 
supposed Inspector-General had addressed to somebody at 
St. Petersburg. He now brings this letter. The young man 
is no inspector at all, and here is what he writes to a Bo- 
hemian friend of his about his adventures in the provincial 
town:* 

In short, the letter produces a great sensation. The friends 

* There is a good English translation of The Inspector-General, 
from which, with slight revision, I take the following passage. 

The Postmaster (reads) : " I hasten to inform you, my dear friend, 
of the wonderful things which have happened to me. On my way 
hither an infantry captain had cleared me out completely, so that 
the innkeeper here intended to send me to jail, when, all of a sudden, 
thanks to my St. Petersburg appearance and costume, all the town 
took me for a Governor-General. Now I am staying at the Gorod- 
nichiy's! I have a splendid time, and flirt awfully with both his wife 
and his daughter. . . . Do you remember how hard up we were, 
taking our meals where we could get them, without paying for them, 
and how one day, in a tea-shop, the pastry-cook collared me for hav- 
ing eaten his pastry to the account of the king of England?! It 
is quite different now. They all lend me money, as much as I care 
for. They are an awful set of originals: you would split of laughter. 
I know you write sometimes for the papers — put them into your 
literature. To begin with, the Governor is as stupid as an old 
horse. . . ." 

The Governor {interrupting) : That cannot be there! There is 
no such thing in the letter. 

Postmaster {showing the letter) : Read it, then, yourself. 

Governor {reads) : "As an old horse" . . . Impossible! You 
must have added that. 

Postmaster: How could I? 

The Guests: Read! read! 

The Postmaster {continues to read) : " The Governor is as stupid 
as an old horse "... 

Governor: The deuce! Now he must repeat it — ^as if it were not 
standing there already ! 

Postmaster {continues reading)'. Hm, Hm, yes! "an old horse. 
The postmaster is also a good man." . . . Well, he also makes 
an improper remark about me. ... 

Governor: Read it then. 

Postmaster: Is it necessary? 

fThis was in those times an expression which meant "without paying.** 



g6G0L 77 

of the Governor are delighted to see him and his family in 
such straits, all accuse each other, and finally fall upon the 
two gentlemen, when a police soldier enters the room and 
announces in a loud voice: " A functionary from St. Peters- 
burg, with Imperial orders, wants to see you all immediately. 
He stays at the hotel." Thereupon the curtain drops over a 
living picture of which Gogol himself had made a most strik- 
ing sketch in pencil, and which is usually reproduced in his 
works; it shows how admirably well, with what a fine artistic 
sense, he represented to himself his characters. 

The Inspector-General marks a new era in the develop- 
ment of dramatic art in Russia. All the comedies and dramas 
which were being played in Russia at that time (with the 
exception, of course, of Misfortune from Intelligence, which, 
however, was not allowed to appear on the stage) hardly 
deserved the name of dramatic literature: so imperfect and 
puerile they were. The Inspector-General, on the contrary, 
would have marked at the time of its appearance ( 1835) an 

Governor: The deuce! once we have begun to read It, we must 
read it all through. 

Artemy Filipovitch {head of the philanthropic institutions) : Per- 
mit me, please, I shall read {puts on his spectacles and reads) : " The 
postmaster is quite like the old porter in our office, and the rascal 
must drink equally hard." . . . 

Postmaster: A naughty boy, who ought to be flogged — that's all! 

Art. Fil. {continues reading): ''The head of the philanthropic 
in — in . . . 

Korobkin: Why do you stop now? 

Art. Fil. Bad writing. But, after all, It Is quite evident that he Is a 
scoundrel. 

Korobkin: Give me the letter, please. I think, I have better eyes 
{tries to take the letter). 

Art. Fil. {does not give it) : No use at all. This passage can be 
omitted. Further on everything Is quite readable. 

Korobkin : Let me have It. I shall see all about It. 

Art. Fil: I also can read It. I tell you that after that passage every- 
thing Is readable. 

Postm.: No, no, read It all. Everything was read so far. 

The Guests: Artemy Filipovitch, pass the letter over. {To Ko- 
robkin) Read It, read It! 

Art. Fil.: All right, all right. {He passes the letter.) There It 



78 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

epoch in any language. Its stage qualities, which will be 
appreciated by every good actor; its sound and hearty 
humour; the natural character of the comical scenes, which 
result from the very characters of those who appear in this 
comedy; the sense of measure which pervades it — all these 
make it one of the best comedies in existence. If the condi- 
tions of life which are depicted here were not so exclusively 
Russian, and did not so exclusively belong to a bygone stage 
of life which is unknown outside Russia, it would have 
been generally recognised as a real pearl of the world's litera- 
ture. This is why, when it was played a few years ago in 
Germany, by actors who properly understood Russian life, 
it achieved such a tremendous success. 

The Inspector-General provoked such a storm of hostile 
criticism on the part of all reactionary Russia, that it was 
hopeless to expect that the comedy which Gogol began next, 
concerning the life of the St. Petersburg functionaries ( The 
Vladimir Cross) ^ could ever be admitted on the stage, and 

is; but wait a moment {he covers a part of it with his finger). Be- 
gin here (all surround him). 

Postma,: Go on. Nonsense, read it all. 

Korobkin {reads) : " The head of the philanthropic institutions 
resembles a pig that wears a cap " . . . . 

Art. Fil. {to the audience) : Not witty at all! A pig that wears 
a cap ! Have you ever seen a pig wearing a cap ? 

Korobkin {continues reading)'. "The inspector of the schools 
smells of onions all through ! " 

The Inspector {to the audience) : Upon my honour, I never touch 
onions. 

The Judge {apart) : Thank God, there Is nothing about me. 

Korobkin (r^^^m^) :" The judge " .... 

The Judge: There! . . . {aloud): Well, gentlemen, I think 
the letter is much too long, and quite uninteresting — why the deuce 
should we go on reading that nonsense? 

Insp. of Schools: No! no! 

Postm. : No ! — go on ! 

Art. Fil. : No, It must be read. 

Korobkin: {continues) : " The judge Lyapkln-Tyapkin is extremely 
mauvais ton!* {Stops.) That must be a French word? 

The Judge: The deuce knows what It means. If It were only " a 
robber," then It would be all right, but it may be something worse. 



g6G0L 79 

Gogol never finished it, only publishing a few striking scenes 
from it: The Morning of a Busy Man, The Law Suit, etc. 
Another comedy, Marriage, in which he represented the 
hesitation and terror through which an Inveterate bachelor 
goes before a marriage, which he finally eludes by jumping 
out of a window a few moments before the beginning of the 
ceremony, has not lost its interest even now. It is so full of 
comical situations, which fine actors cannot but highly appre- 
ciate, that it is still a part of the current repertoire of the 
Russian stage. 

DEAD SOULS 

Gogol's main work was Dead Souls. This is a novel almost 
without a plot, or rather with a plot of the utmost simplicity. 
Like the plot of The Inspector-General, it was suggested 
to Gogol by Pushkin. In those times, when serfdom was 
flourishing in Russia, the ambition of every nobleman was 
to become the owner of at least a couple of hundred serfs. 
The serfs used to be sold like slaves and could be bought 
separately. A needy nobleman, Tchitchikoff, conceives accord- 
ingly a very clever plan. A census of the population being 
made only every ten or twenty years, and every serf-owner 
having in the interval to pay taxes for every male soul which 
he owned at the time of the last census, even though part of 
his " souls " be dead since, Tchitchikoff conceives the Idea 
of taking advantage of this anomaly. He will buy the dead 
souls at a very small expense: the landlords will be only 
too pleased to get rid of this burden and surely will sell them 
for anything; and after Tchitchikoff has bought two or three 
hundred of these Imaginary serfs, he will buy cheap land 
somewhere In the southern prairies, transfer the dead souls, 
on paper, to that land, register them as If they were really 
settled there, and mortgage that new sort of estate to the 
State Landlords' Bank. In this way he can easily make the 
beginnings of a fortune. With this plan Tchitchikoff comes 
to a provincial town and begins his operations. He makes, 
first of all, the necessary visits. 

" The newcomer made visits to all the functionaries of the town. 
He went to testify his respects to the Governor, who like Tchitchikoff 



8o RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

himself, was neither stout nor thin. He was decorated with a cross 
and was spoken of as a person who would soon get a star; but was, 
after all, a very good fellow and was fond of making embroideries 
upon fine muslin. Tchitchikoff's next visits were to the Vice-Gov- 
ernor, to the Chief Magistrate, to the Chief of Police, the Head 
of the Crown Factories . . . but it is so difficult to remember 
all the powerful persons in this world . . . sufficient to say that 
the newcomer showed a wonderful activity as regards visits. He 
even went to testify his respects to the Sanitary Inspector, and to 
the Town Surveyor, and after that he sat for a long time in his 
carriage trying to remember to whom else he might pay a visit; 
but he could think of no more functionaries in the town. In his 
conversations with all these influential persons he managed to say 
something to flatter every one of them. In talking with the Governor 
he accidentally dropped the remark that when one enters this province 
one thinks of paradise — all the roads being quite like velvet; and 
that ' governments which nominate wise functionaries surely de- 
serve universal gratitude.' To the Chief of the Police he said some- 
thing very gratifying about the police force, and while he was talk- 
ing to the Vice-Governor and to the presiding magistrate, who were 
only State-Councillors, he twice made the mistake of calling them 
* Your Excellency,' with which mistake they were both immensely 
pleased. The result of all this was that the Governor asked Tchitchi- 
koff to come that same day to an evening party, and the other func- 
tionaries invited him, some to dine with them, others to a cup of tea, 
and others again to a party of whist. 

" About himself TchitchikofE avoided talking, and if he spoke at 
all it was in vague sentences only, with a remarkable modesty, his 
conversation taking in such cases a rather bookish turn. He said 
that he was a mere nobody in this world and did not wish people to 
take any particular interest in him ; that he had had varied experiences 
in his life, sufltered in the service of the State for the sake of truth, 
had had many enemies, some of whom had even attempted his life, 
but that now, wishing to lead a quiet existence, he intended to find 
at last some corner to live in, and, having come to this town, he con- 
sidered it his imperative duty to testify his respect to the chief func- 
tionaries of the place. This was all they could learn in town about 
the new person who soon made his appearance at the Governor's 
evening party. 

" Here, the newcomer once more produced the most favourable 
impression. . . . He always found out what he ought to do on 
every occasion; and he proved himself an experienced man of the 
world. Whatsoever the conversation might be about, he always knew 
how to support it. If people talked about horses, he spoke about 



g6gol 8 I 

horses; If they began talking about the best hunting dogs, here also 
Tchitchlkoff would make remarks to the point. If the conversation 
related to some inquest which was being made by the Government, 
he would show that he also knew something about the tricks of the 
Civil Service functionaries. When the talk was about billiards, he 
showed that in billiards he could keep his own; if people talked 
about virtue, he also spoke about virtue, even with tears in his eyes; 
and if the conversation turned on making brandy, he knew all about 
brandy; as to Custom officers, he knew everything about them, as 
though he had himself been a Custom officer, or a detective; but the 
most remarkable thing was that he knew how to cover all this with 
a certain sense of propriety, and in every circumstance knew how to 
behave. He never spoke too loudly, and never in too subdued a tone, 
but exactly as one ought to speak. In short, take him from any side 
you like, he was a very respectable man. All the functionaries were 
delighted with the arrival of such a person in their town." 



It has often been said that GogoFs Tchitchlkoff Is a truly 
Russian type. But — Is It so? Has not every one of us met 
Tchitchlkoff ? — middle-aged ; not too thick and not too thin ; 
moving about with the lightness almost of a military man. 
. . . The subject he wishes to speak to you about may offer 
many difficulties, but he knows how to approach It and to 
interest you In It In a thousand different ways. When he talks 
to an old general he rises to the understanding of the great- 
ness of the country and her military glory. He Is not a jingo 
— surely not — but he has, just in the proper measure, the 
love of war and victories which are required In a man who 
wishes to be described as a patriot. When he meets with a 
sentimental reformer, he is sentimental and desirous of 
reforms, and so on, and he always will keep In view the 
object he aims at at any given moment, and will try to Interest 
you In it. Tchitchlkoff may buy dead souls, or railway shares, 
or he may collect funds for some charitable institution, or 
look for a position in a bank, but he is an immortal Inter- 
national type; we meet him everywhere; he is of all lands 
and of all times; he but takes different forms to suit the 
requirements of nationality and time. 

One of the first landlords to whom Tchitchlkoff spoke of 
his Intention of buying dead *souls was Maniloff — also a 
universal type, with the addition of those special features 



82 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

which the quiet life of a serf-owner could add to such a 
character. "A very nice man to look at," as Gogol says; 
his features possessed something very pleasant — only It 
seemed as If too much sugar had been put Into them. " When 
you meet him for the first time you cannot but exclaim after 
the first few minutes of conversation : ' What a nice and 
pleasant man he Is.' The next moment you say nothing, but 
the next but one moment you say to yourself : ' The deuce 
knows what he Is,' and you go away; but If you don't, you 
feel mortally bored." You could never hear from him a 
lively or animated word. Everyone has some point of Interest 
and enthusiasm. Maniloff had nothing of the kind; he was 
always In the same mild temper. He seemed to be lost In 
reflection; but what about, no one knew. Sometimes, as he 
looked from his window on his wide courtyard and the pond 
behind, he would say to himself: " How nice It would be to 
have there an underground passage leading from the man- 
sion to the pond, and to have across the pond a stone bridge, 
with pretty shops on both Its sides, in which shops all sorts 
of things useful for the poor people could be bought." His 
eyes became In this case wonderfully soft, and his face took 
on a most contented expression. However, even less strange 
intentions remained mere intentions. In his house something 
was always missing; his drawing room had excellent furni- 
ture covered with fine silk stuff, which probably had cost 
much money; but for two of the chairs there was not sufficient 
of the stuff, and so they remained covered with plain sack- 
cloth; and for many years in succession the proprietor used 
to stop his guests with these words : " Please, do not take that 
chair; it is not yet ready." '' His wife . . . But they were 
quite satisfied with each other. Although more than eight 
years had passed since they had married, one of them would 
still occasionally bring to the other a piece of apple or a 
tiny sweet, or a nut, saying in a touchingly sweet voice which 
expressed infinite love : ' Open, my dearest, your little mouth, 
— I will put into it this little sweet.' Evidently the mouth 
was opened in a very charming way. For her husband's birth- 
day the wife always prepared some surprise — for instance, 
an embroidered sheath for his tooth-pick, and very often, 
sitting on the sofa, all of a sudden, no one knows for what 



g(5gol 83 

reason, one of them would leave his pipe and the other her 
work, and Impress on each other such a sweet and long kiss 
that during It one might easily smoke a little cigarette. In 
short, they were what people call quite happy." 

It Is evident that of his estate and of the condition of his 
peasants Maniloff never thought. He knew absolutely noth- 
ing about such matters, and left everything In the hands of a 
very sharp manager, under whose rule Maniloflt's serfs were 
worse off than under a brutal landlord. Thousands of 
such Maniloffs peopled Russia some fifty years ago, and I 
think that If we look closer round we shall find such would-be 
*' sentimental " persons under every latitude. 

It Is easy to conceive what a gallery of portraits Gogol 
was enabled to produce as he followed Tchitchlkoff In his 
wanderings from one landlord to another, while his hero tried 
to buy as many " dead souls " as he could. Every one of the 
landlords described in Dead Souls — the sentimentalist Mani- 
loff, the heavy and cunning Sobakevitch, the arch-liar and 
cheat Nozdreff, the fossilised, antediluvian lady Koro- 
botchka, the miser Plyushkin — have become common names 
in Russian conversation. Some of them, as for instance the 
miser Plyushkin, are depicted with such a depth of psycho- 
logical Insight that one may ask one's self whether a better 
and more humane portrait of a miser can be found in any 
literature ? 

Towards the end of his life Gogol, who was suffering 
from a nervous disease, fell under the influence of " pietists " 
— especially of Madame O. A. Smirnoff (born Rossett), and 
began to consider all his writings as a sin of his life. Twice, 
in a paroxysm of religious self-accusation, he burned the 
manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls, of which 
only some parts have been preserved, and were circulated 
in his lifetime In manuscript. The last ten years of his life 
were extremely painful. He repented with reference to all 
his writings, and published a very unwholesome book, Cor- 
respondence with Friends, in which, under the mask of 
Christian humility, he took a most arrogant position with 
respect to all literature, his own writings included. He died 
at Moscow in 1852. 



84 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

It hardly need be added that the Government of Nicholas 
I. considered Gogol's writings extremely dangerous. The 
author had the utmost difficulties in getting permission for 
The Inspector-General to be played at all on the stage, and 
the permission was only obtained by Zhukovskiy, at the 
express will of the Tsar himself. Before the authorisation was 
given to print the first volume of Dead Souls, Gogol had to 
undergo most incredible trouble; and when the volume 
was out of print a second edition was never permitted in 
Nicholas I.'s reign. When Gogol died, and Turgueneff 
published in a Moscow paper a short obituary notice, which 
really contained absolutely nothing ('' any tradesman might 
have had a better one," as Turgueneff himself said), the 
young novelist was arrested, and it was only because of the 
influence of his friends in high position that the punishment 
which Nicholas I. Inflicted upon him was limited to exile 
from Moscow and a forced residence on his estate In the 
country. Were It not for these Influences, Turgueneff very 
probably would have been exiled, like Pushkin and Ler- 
montoff, either to the Caucasus or to Siberia. 

The police of Nicholas I. were not wrong when they 
attributed to Gogol a great Influence upon the minds of 
Russians. His works circulated Immensely In manuscript 
copies. In my childhood we used to copy the second volume 
of Dead Souls — the whole book from beginning to end, as 
well as parts from the first volume. Everyone considered then 
this work as a formidable Indlcment against serfdom; and 
so it was. In this respect Gogol was the forerunner of the 
literary movement against serfdom which began In Russia 
with such force, a very few years later, during and especially 
after the Crimean War. Gogol never expressed his personal 
ideas about this subject, but the life-pictures of serf-owners 
which he gave and their relations to their serfs — especially 
the waste of the labour of the serfs — were a stronger 
indictment that if Gogol had related facts of brutal 
behaviour of landlords towards their men. In fact, it is im- 
possible to read Dead Souls without being impressed by the 
fact that serfdom was an institution which had produced its 
own doom. Drinking, gluttony, waste of the serf's labour 
in order to keep hundreds of retainers, or for things as useless 



GOdOL 85 

as the sentimentalist Maniloff's bridges, were characteristic 
of the landlords; and when Gogol wanted to represent one 
landlord who, at least, obtained some pecuniary advantage 
from the forced labour of his serfs and enriched himself, he 
had to produce a landlord who was not a Russian: in fact, 
among the Russian landlords such a man would have been 
a most extraordinary occurrence. 

As to the literary Influence of Gogol, It was Immense, and 
It continues down to the present day. Gogol was not a deep 
thinker, but he was a very great artist. His art was pure 
realism, but it was Imbued with the desire of making for 
mankind something good and great. When he wrote the most 
comical things, It was not merely for the pleasure of laugh- 
ing at human weaknesses, but he also tried to awaken the 
desire of something better and greater, and he always 
achieved that aim. Art, In Gogol's conception, Is a torch- 
bearer which Indicates a higher Ideal; and it was certainly 
this high conception of art which induced him to give such 
an incredible amount of time to the working out of the 
schemes of his works, and afterwards, to the most careful 
elaboration of every line which he published. 

The generation of the Decembrists surely would have 
introduced social and political ideas in the novel. But that 
generation had perished, and Gogol was now the first to 
introduce the social element into Russian literature, so as to 
give it its prominent and dominating position. While it 
remains an open question whether realism in the Russian 
novel does not date from Pushkin, rather even than from 
Gogol — this, in fact, is the view of both Turgueneff and 
Tolstoy — there is yet no doubt that it was Gogol's writings 
which introduced into Russian literature the social element, 
and social criticism based upon the analysis of the conditions 
within Russia itself. The peasant novels of Grigorovitch, 
Turgueneff's Sportsman's Notebook, and the first works of 
Dostoyevskiy were a direct outcome of Gogol's Initiative. 

Realism in art was much discussed some time ago, in con- 
nection chiefly with the first writings of Zola; but we, 
Russians, who had had Gogol, and knew realism in its best 
form, could not fall in with the views of the French realists. 
We saw in Zola a tremendous amount of the same romanti- 



86 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

cism which he combated; and in his reahsm, such as it 
appeared in his writings of the first period, we saw a step 
backwards from the realism of Balzac. For us, realism could 
not be limited to a mere anatomy of society: it had to have 
a higher background; the realistic description had to be made 
subservient to an idealistic aim. Still less could we under- 
stand realism as a description only of the lowest aspects of 
life, because, to limit one's observations to the lowest aspects 
only, is not to be a realist. Real life has beside and within 
its lowest manifestations its highest ones as well. Degeneracy 
is not the sole nor dominant feature of modern society, if 
we look at it as a whole. Consequently, the artist who limits 
his observations to the lowest and most degenerate aspects 
only, and not for a special purpose, does not make us under- 
stand that he explores only one small corner of life. Such 
an artist does not conceive life as it is: he knows but one 
aspect of it, and this is not the most interesting one. 

Realism in France was certainly a necessary protest, partly 
against unbridled Romanticism, but chiefly against the ele- 
gant art which glided on the surface and refused to glance 
at the often most inelegant motives of elegant acts — the art 
which purposely ignored the often horrible consequences of 
the so-called correct and elegant life. For Russia, this protest 
was not necessary. Since Gogol, art could not be limited to 
any class of society. It was bound to embody them all, to 
treat them all realistically, and to penetrate beneath the sur- 
face of social relations. Therefore there was no need of the 
exaggeration which in France was a necessary and sound 
reaction. There was no need, moreover, to fall into extremes 
in order to free art from dull moralisation. Our great realist, 
Gogol, had already shown to his followers how realism can 
be put to the service of higher aims, without losing anything 
of its penetration or ceasing to be a true reproduction of 
life. 



PART IV 

Turgueneff — Tolstoy 



CHAPTER IV. 

TURGUENEFF — TOLSTOY 



./. 



TURGUENEFF: The main features of his Art— A Sportsman s 
Notebook — Pessimism of his early novels — His series of novels 
representing the leading types of Russian society — Rudin — Lav- 
retskiy — Helen and Insaroff — Bazaroff — Why Fathers and Sons 
was misunderstood — Hamlet and Don Quixote — Virgin Soil: 
movement towards the people — Verses in Prose. TOLSTOY: 
Childhood and Boyhood — During and after the Crimean War 
— Youth: In search of an ideal — Small stories — The Cossacks 
— Educational work — War and Peace — Anna Karenina — 
Religious crisis — His interpretation of the Christian teaching 
— Main points of the Christian ethics — Latest works of Art — 
Kreutzer Sonata — Resurrection, 



TURGUENEFF 

PUSHKIN, Lermontoff, and Gogol were the real 
creators of Russian literature ; but to Western Europe 
they remained nearly total strangers. It was only 
Turgueneff and Tolstoy — the two greatest novelists of 
Russia, if not of their century altogether — and, to some 
extent, Dostoyevskly, who broke down the barrier of lan- 
guage which had kept Russian writers unknown to West 
Europeans. They have made Russian literature familiar and 
popular outside Russia ; they have exercised and still exercise 
their share of Influence upon West-European thought and 
art; and owing to them, we may be sure that henceforward 
the best productions of the Russian mind will be part of the 
general Intellectual belongings of civilised mankind. 

For the artistic construction, the finish and the beauty of 
his novels, Turgueneff was very probably the greatest novel- 
writer of his century. However, the chief characteristic of 
his poetical genius lay not only in that sense of the beautiful 

89 



90 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

which he possessed to so high a degree, but also in the 
highly intellectual contents of his creations. His novels are 
not mere stories dealing at random with this or that type of 
men, or with some particular current of life, or accident 
happening to fall under the author's observation. They are 
intimately connected with each other, and they give the suc- 
cession of the leading intellectual types of Russia which have 
impressed their own stamp upon each successive generation. 
The novels of Turgueneff, of which the first appeared in 
1845, cover a period of more than thirty years, and during 
these three decades Russian society underwent one of the 
deepest and the most rapid modifications ever witnessed in 
European history. The leading types of the educated classes 
went through successive changes with a rapidity which was 
only possible in a society suddenly awakening from a long 
slumber, casting away an institution which hitherto had 
permeated its whole existence (I mean serfdom), and rush- 
ing towards a new life. And this succession of ** history- 
making " types was represented by Turgueneff with a depth 
of conception, a fulness of philosophical and humanitarian 
understanding, and an artistic insight, almost equal to fore- 
sight, which are found in none of the modern writers to the 
same extent and in that happy combination. 

Not that he would follow a preconceived plan. " All these 
discussions about ^ tendency ' and 'unconsciousness ' in art," 
he wrote, *' are nothing but a debased coin of rhetorics. . . . 
Those only who cannot do better will submit to a precon- 
ceived programme, because a truly talented writer Is the 
condensed expression of life Itself, and he cannot write either 
a panegyric or a pamphlet: either would be too mean for 
him." But as soon as a new leading type of men or women 
appeared amidst the educated classes of Russia, It took pos- 
session of Turgueneff. He was haunted by it, and haunted 
until he had succeeded In representing it to the best of his 
understanding In a work of art, just as for years Murillo was 
haunted by the Image of a Virgin In the ecstasy of purest love, 
until he finally succeeded In rendering on the canvas his full 
conception. 

When some human problem had thus taken possession of 
Turgueneff's mind, he evidently could not discuss it in terms 



TURGUjfiNEFF 91 

of logic — this would have been the manner of the political 
writer — he conceived it In the shape of Images and scenes. 
Even In his conversation, when he intended to give you an 
idea of some problem which worried his mind, he used to 
do It by describing a scene so vividly that it would for 
ever engrave itself in the memory. This was also a marked 
trait in his writings. His novels are a succession of scenes 
— some of them of the most exquisite beauty — each oif 
which helps him further to characterise his heroes. There- 
fore all his novels are short, and need no plot to sustain the 
reader's attention. Those who have been perverted by sensa- 
tional novel-reading may, of course, be disappointed with a 
want of sensational episode; but the ordinary intelligent 
reader feels from the very first pages that he has real and 
interesting men and women before him, with really human 
hearts throbbing In them, and he cannot part with the book 
before he has reached the end and grasped the characters in 
full. Simplicity of means for accomplishing far-reaching ends 
— that chief feature of truly good art — is felt In everything 
Turgueneff wrote. 

George Brandes, in his admirable study of Turgueneff (In 
Moderne Geister), the best, the deepest, and the most 
poetical of all that has been written about the great novelist, 
makes the following remark : 

*' It IS not easy to say quite definitely what makes of Turgueneff an 
artist of the first rank. . . . That he has in the highest degree 
the capacity which makes a true poet, of producing living human be- 
ings, does not, after all, comprise everything. What makes the reader 
feel so much his artistic superiority is the concordance one feels 
between the interest taken by the poet In the person whom he depicts, 
or the poet's judgment about this person, and the impression which the 
reader himself gets; because it is in this point — the relation of the 
artist to his own creations — that every weakness of either the man or 
the poet must necessarily appear." 

The reader feels every such mistake at once and keeps the 
remembrance of It, notwithstanding all the efforts of the 
author to dissipate its impression. 

" What reader of Balzac, or of Dickens, or of Auerbach — to 
speak of the great dead only — does not know this feeling! " Brandes 



92 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

continues. " When Balzac swims in warmed-up excitement, or when 
Dickens becomes childishly touching, and Auerbach intentionally 
naive, the reader feels repulsed by the untrue, the unpleasant. Never 
do we meet with anything artistically repulsive in TurguenefE." 

This remark of the great critic Is absolutely true, and only 
a few words need be added to it, with reference to the 
wonderful architecture of all Turgueneff's novels. Be It a 
small novel, or a large one, the proportion of the parts is 
wonderfully held; not a single episode of a merely " ethno- 
graphical " character comes in to disturb or to slacken the 
development of the Inner human drama ; not one feature, and 
certainly not one single scene, can be omitted without de- 
stroying the Impression of the whole; and the final accord, 
which seals the usually touching general impression, is always 
worked out with wonderful finish. * 

And then the beauty of the chief scenes. Every one of 
them could be made the subject of a most artistic and tell- 
ing picture. Take, for instance, the final scenes of Helen 
and Insaroff In Venice: their visit to the picture gallery, 
which made the keeper exclaim, as he looked at them, 
Poveretti! or the scene In the theatre, where In response to 
the Imitated cough of the actress (who played VIoletta in 
Traviata) resounded the deep, real cough of the dying 
Insaroff. The actress herself, with her poor dress and bony 
shoulders, who yet took possession of the audience by the 
warmth and reality of her feeling, and created a storm of 
enthusiasm by her cry of dying joy on the return of Alfred; 
nay, I should even say, the dark harbour where one sees the 
gull drop from rosy light Into the deep blackness of the 
night — each of these scenes comes to the imagination on 
canvas. In his lecture, Hamlet and Don Quixote, where 
he speaks of Shakespeare and Cervantes being contem- 
poraries, and mentions that the romance of Cervantes was 
translated Into English In Shakespeare's lifetime, so that 
he might have read It, Turgueneff exclaims: "What a 
picture, worthy of the brush of a thoughtful painter: Shake- 

* The only exception to be made is the scene with the two old 
people in Virgin Soil. It is useless and out of place. To have intro- 
duced it was simply " a literary whim." 



TURGU^NEFF 93 

speare reading Don Quixote! " It would seem as if in these 
lines he betrayed the secret of the wonderful beauty — the 
pictorial beauty — of such a number of his scenes. He must 
have imagined them, not only with the music of the feeling 
that speaks in them, but also as pictures, full of the deepest 
psychological meaning and in which all the surroundings of 
the main figures — the Russian birch wood, or the German 
town on the Rhine, or the harbour of Venice — are in har- 
mony with the feeling. 

Turgueneff knew the human heart deeply, especially the 
heart of a young, thoroughly honest, and reasoning girl when 
she awakes to higher feelings and ideas, and that awakening 
takes, without her realising it, the shape of love. In the 
description of that moment of life Turgueneff stands quite 
unrivalled. On the whole, love is the leading motive of all 
his novels; and the moment of its full development is the 
moment when his hero — he may be a political agitator or 
a modest squire — appears in full light. The great poet knew 
that a human type cannot be characterised by the daily work 
in which such a man is engaged — however important that 
work may be — and still less by a flow of words. Conse- 
quently, when he draws, for instance, the picture of an 
agitator in Dmitri Rudin, he does not report his fiery 
speeches — for the simple reason that the agitator's words 
would not have characterised him. Many have pronounced 
the same appeals to Equality and Liberty before him, and 
many more will pronounce them after his death. But that 
special type of apostle of equality and liberty — the " man 
of the word, and of no action " which he intended to 
represent in Rudin — is characterised by the hero's relations 
to different persons, and particularly, above all, by his love. 
By his love — because it is in love that the human being 
appears in full, with its individual features. Thousands of 
men have made " propaganda by word," all very much in 
the same expressions, but each of them has loved in a dif- 
ferent way. Mazzini and Lassalle did similar work; but how 
different they were in their loves ! You do not know Lassalle 
unless you know his relations to the Countess of Hatzfeld. 

In common with all great writers, Turgueneff combined 
the qualities of a pessimist and a lover of mankind. 



94 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

" There flows a deep and broad stream of melancholy in 1 ur- 
gueneff's mind," remarks Brandes, " and therefore it flows also 
through all his works. Though his description be objective and im- 
personal, and although he hardly ever introduces into his novels lyric 
poetry, nevertheless they produce on the whole the impression of lyrics. 
There is so much of Turgueneff's own personality expressed in them, 
and this personality is always sadness — a specific sadness without a 
touch of sentimentality. Never does Turgueneff give himself up 
entirely to his feelings: he impresses by restraint; but no West Euro- 
pean novelist is so sad as he is. The great melancholists of the Latin 
race, such as Leopardi and Flaubert, have hard, fast outlines in their 
style; the German sadness is of a caustic humour, or it is pathetic, or 
sentimental ; but Turgueneff 's melancholy is, in its substance, the mel- 
ancholy of the Slavonian races in its weakness and tragical aspect, it is 
a descendant in a straight line from the melancholy of the Slavonian 
folk-song. . . . When Gogol is melancholy, it is from despair. 
When Dostoyevskiy expresses the same feeling, it is because his heart 
bleeds with sympathy for the down-trodden, and especially for great 
sinners. Tolstoy's melancholy has its foundation in his religious 
fatalism. Turgueneff alone is a philosopher. . . . He loves man, 
even though he does not think much of him and does not trust him 
very much." 

The full force of Turgueneff's talent appeared already in 
his earlier productions — that is, in the series of short sketches 
from village life, to which the misleading title of A 
Sportsman' s Note-Book was given In order to avoid the 
rigours of censorship. Notwithstanding the simplicity of their 
contents and the total absence of the satirical element, these 
sketches gave a decided blow to serfdom. Turgueneff did 
not describe In them such atrocities of serfdom as might 
have been considered mere exceptions to the rule; nor did 
he Idealise the Russian peasant; but by giving life-portraits 
of sensible, reasoning, and loving beings, bent down under 
the yoke of serfdom, together with life-pictures of the 
shallowness and meanness of the life of the serf-owners — 
even the best of them — he awakened the consciousness of 
the wrong done by the system. The social Influence of these 
sketches was very great. As to their artistic qualities, suffice 
It to say that In these short sketches we find In a few 
pages most vivid pictures of an Incredible variety of human 
characters, together with most beautiful sketches of nature. 



TURGUfeNEFF 95 

Contempt, admiration, sympathy, or deep sadness are im- 
pressed in turns on the reader at the will of the young author 
— each time, however, in such a form and by such vivid 
scenes that each of these short sketches is worth a good 
novel. 

In the series of short novels, A Quiet Corner, Correspond- 
ence, Ydkov Pdsynkov, Faust, and Asya, all dated 1854 and 
1855, the genius of Turgueneff revealed itself fully: his 
manner, his inner self, his powers. A deep sadness pervades 
these novels. A sort of despair in the educated Russian, 
who, even in his love, appears utterly incapable of a strong 
feeling which would carry away all obstacles, and always 
manages, even when circumstances favour him, to bring the 
woman who loves him to grief and despair. The follow- 
ing lines from Correspondence characterise best the leading 
idea of three of these novels : A Quiet Corner, Correspond- 
ence, and Asya. It is a girl of twenty-six who writes to a 
friend of her childhood : 

" Again I repeat that I do not speak of the girl who finds it dif- 
ficult and hard to think. . . . She looks round, she expects, and 
asks herself, when the one whom her soul is longing for will come. 
. . . At last he appears: she is carried away by him; she is like 
soft wax in his hands. Happiness, love, thought — all these come now 
in streams; all her unrest is settled, all doubts resolved by him; 
truth itself seems to speak through his lips. She worships him, she 
feels ashamed of her own happiness, she learns, she loves. Great is 
his power over her at that time! . . . If he were a hero he could 
have fired her, taught her how to sacrifice herself, and all sacrifices 
would have been easy for her! But there are no heroes nowadays. 
. . . . Still, he leads her wherever he likes; she takes to what 
interests him; each of his words penetrates Into her soul — she does 
not know yet how insignificant and empty, how false, words can be, 
how little they cost the one who pronounces them, how little they can 
be trusted. Then, following these first moments of happiness and 
hopes, comes usually — owing to circumstances (circumstances are 
always the fault) — comes usually the separation. I have heard it 
said that there have been cases when the two kindred souls have 
united immediately; I have also heard that they did not always find 
happiness in that . . . however, I will not speak of what I have 
not seen myself. But — ^the fact that calculation of the pettiest sort 
and the most miserable prudence can live in a young heart by the 



96 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

side of the most passionate exaltation, this I have unfortunately 
learned from experience. So, the separation comes. . . . Happy 
the girl who at once sees that this is the end of all, and will not 
soothe herself by expectations! But you, brave and just men, you 
mostly have not the courage, nor the desire, to tell us the truth . . . 
it is easier for you to deceive us . . . or, after all, I am ready 
to believe that, together with us, you deceive yourselves." 

A complete despair in the capacity for action of the 
educated man in Russia runs through all the novels of this 
period. Those few men who seem to be an exception — 
those who have energy, or simulate It for a short time, 
generally end their lives In the billiard room of the public 
house, or spoil their existences In some other way. The years 
1854 and 1855, when these novels were written, fully explain 
the pessimism of Turgueneff. In Russia they were perhaps 
the darkest years of that dark period of Russian history — 
the reign of Nicholas I. — and In Western Europe, too, the 
years closely following the coup d! etat of Napoleon III. 
were years of a general reaction after the great unrealised 
hopes of 1848. 

Turgueneff, who came very near being marched to Siberia 
in 1852 for having printed at Moscow his Innocent necrolog- 
ical note about Gogol, after it had been forbidden by the St. 
Petersburg censorship, was compelled to live now on his 
estate, beholding round him the servile submlsslveness of all 
those who had formerly shown some signs of revolt. Seeing 
all round the triumph of the supporters of serfdom and 
despotism, he might easily have been brought to despair. But 
the sadness which pervades the novels of this period was not 
. a cry of despair; it was not a satire either; It was the gentle 
/ touch of a loving friend, and that constitutes their main 
charm. From the artistic point of view, Asya and Corre- 
spondence are perhaps the finest gems which we owe to 
\ Turgueneff. 

To judge of the importance of Turgueneff's work one 
must read in succession — so he himself desired — his six 
novels: Dmitri Rudin, A Nobleman^ s Retreat ( line nichee de 
Gentilshommes, or, Liza, in Mr. Ralston's version). On the 
Eve, Fathers and Sons, Smoke, and Virgin Soil. In them, one 



TURGU^NEFF 97 

sees his poetical powers in full; at the same time one gets an 
insight into the different aspects which intellectual life took 
in Russia from 1848 to 1876, and one understands the poet's 
attitude towards the best representatives of advanced thought 
in Russia during that most Interesting period of her develop- 
ment. In some of his earlier short tales Turgueneff had already 
touched upon Hamletism in Russian life. In his Hamlet of 
the Schigrovsky District^ and his Diary of a Useless Man, he 
had already given admirable sketches of that sort of man. 
But It was in Riidin (1855) ^^^^ he achieved the full artis- 
tic representation of that type which had grown upon Rus- 
sian soil with especial profusion at a time when our best men 
were condemned to inactivity and — words. Turgueneff did 
not spare men of that type; he represented them with their 
worst features, as well as with their best, and yet he treated 
them with tenderness. He loved Rudin, with all his defects, 
and in this love he was at one with the best men of his gen- 
eration, and of ours, too. 

Rudin was a man of the " forties," nurtured upon Hegel's 
philosophy, and developed under the conditions which pre- 
vailed under Nicholas I., when there was no possibility what- 
ever for a thinking man to apply his energy, unless he chose 
to become an obedient functionary of an autocratic, slave- 
owning State. The scene is laid in one of the estates in 
middle Russia, in the family of a lady who takes a super- 
ficial interest in all sorts of novelties, reads books that are 
prohibited by censorship, such as Tocquevllle's Democ- 
racy in America; and must always have round her, 
whether It be in her salon in the capital or on her estate, all 
sorts of men of mark. It is in her drawing-room that Rudin 
makes his first appearance. In a few moments he becomes 
master of the conversation, and by his intelligent remarks to 
the point wins the admiration of the hostess and the sym- 
pathy of the younger generation. The latter Is represented 
by the daughter of the lady and by a young student who is the 
tutor of her boys. Both are entirely captivated by Rudin. 
When he speaks, later on In the evening, of his student years, 
and touches upon such taking subjects as liberty, free thought, 
and the struggles In Western Europe for freedom, his words 
are full of so much fire, so much poetry and enthusiasm, that 



98 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

the two younger people listen to him with a feeling which 
approaches worship. The result is evident: Natasha, the 
daughter, falls in love with him. Rudin is much older than 
Natasha — silver streaks already appear In his beautiful hair, 
and he speaks of love as of something which, for him, 
belongs to the past. " Look at this oak,*' he says; " the last 
autumn's leaves still cover It, and they will never fall off until 
the young green leaves have made their appearance." 
Natasha understands this In the sense that Rudin's old love 
can only fade away when a new one has taken Its place — 
and gives him her love. Breaking with all the traditions of 
the strictly correct house of her mother, she gives an Inter- 
view to Rudin in the early morning on the banks of a remote 
pond. She Is ready to follow him anywhere, anyhow, without 
making any conditions; but he, whose love Is more In his 
brain than in his heart, finds nothing to say to her but to talk 
about the Impossibility of obtaining the permission of her 
mother for this marriage. Natasha hardly listens to his 
words. She would follow him with or without the consent of 
her mother, and asks: "What Is then to be done? " — " To 
submit," Is Rudin's reply. 

The hero who spoke so beautifully about fighting against 
all possible obstacles has broken down before the first obsta- 
cle that appeared In his way. Words, words, and no actions, 
was Indeed the characteristic of these men, who In the for- 
ties represented the best thinking element of Russian society. 

Later on we meet Rudin once more. He has still found no 
work for himself, neither has he made peace with the con- 
ditions of life at that time. He remains poor, exiled by the 
government from one town to another, till at last he goes 
abroad, and during the Insurrection of June, 1848, he is 
killed on a barricade in Paris. There is an epilogue to the 
novel, and that epilogue Is so beautiful that a few passages 
from It must be produced here. It is Lezhneff, formerly 
Rudin's enemy, who speaks. 

" I know him well," continued Lezhneff, " I am aware of his 
faults. They are the more conspicuous because he is not to be regarded 
on a small scale." 

'' His is a character of genius! " cried Bassistoff. - 



TURGUfeNEFF 99 

" Genius, very likely he has! " replied Lezhneff, " but as for char- 
acter. . . . That's just his misfortune: there's no force of 
character in him. . . . But I want to speak of what is good, 
of what is rare in him. He has enthusiasm; and, believe me, who 
am a phlegmatic person enough, that is the most precious quality 
in our times. We have all become insufferably reasonable, indif- 
ferent, and slothful; we are asleep and cold, and thanks to anyone 
who will wake us up and warm us! It is high time! Do you 
remember, Sasha, once when I was talking to you about him, I 
blamed him for coldness? I was right, and wrong too, then. The 
coldness is in his blood — that is not his fault — and not in his head. He 
is not an actor, as I called him, nor a cheat, nor a scoundrel; he 
lives at other people's expense, not like a swindler, but like a child. 
. . . Yes; no doubt he will die somewhere in poverty and want; 
but are we to throw stones at him for that? He never does anything 
himself precisely, he has no vital force, no blood; but who has the 
right to say that he has not been of use, that his words have not 
scattered good seeds in young hearts, to whom nature has not de- 
nied, as she has to him, powers for action, and the faculty of carrying 
out their own ideas? Indeed, I myself, to begin with, have gained 
all that I have from him. Sasha knows what Rudin did for me in 
my youth. I also maintained, I recollect, that Rudin's words could 
not produce an effect on men; but I was speaking then of men like 
myself, at my present age, of men who have already lived and been 
broken in by life. One false note in a man's eloquence, and the whole 
harmony is spoiled for us; but a young man's ear, happily, is not 
so over-fine, not so trained. If the substance of what he hears seems 
fine to him, what does he care about the intonation? The intonation 
he will supply for himself ! " 

" Bravo, bravo! " cried Bassistoff, "that is justly spoken! And as 
regards Rudin's influence, I swear to you, that man not only knows 
how to move you, he lifts you up, he does not let you stand still, 
he stirs you to the depths and sets you on fire! "* 

However, with such men as Rudin further progress in 
Russia would have been impossible : new men had to appear. 
And so they did: we find them in the subsequent novels of 
Turgueneff — but they meet with what difficulties, what pains 
they undergo ! This we see In Lavretskiy and Liza (A Noble- 
man*5 Retreat) who belonged to the intermediate period. 

* Taken from the excellent translation by Mrs. Constance Gar- 
nett, in Heinemann's edition of TurguenefE's works. 



Lara 



loo RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Lavretskly could not be satisfied with Rudin's role of an 
errant apostle; he tried his hands at practical activity; but he 
also could not find his way amidst the new currents of hfe. 
He had the same artistic and philosophical development as 
Rudin; he had the necessary will; but his powers of action 
were palsied — not by his power of analysis in this case, but 
by the mediocrity of his surroundings and by his unfortunate 
marriage. Lavretskiy ends also in wreck. 

A Nobleman's Retreat was an immense success. It was said 
that, together with the autobiographic tale. First Love, it 
was the most artistic of Turgueneff's works. This, however, is 
hardly so. Its great success was surely due, first of all, to the 
wide circle of readers to whom it appealed. Lavretskiy has 
married most unfortunately — a lady who soon becomes a sort 
of a second-rate Parisian lioness. They separate; and then 
he meets with a girl, Liza, in whom Turgueneff has given the 
best impersonation imaginable of the average, thoroughly 
good and honest Russian girl of those times. She and Lavret- 
'l skiy fall in love with each other. For a moment both she 

^ and Lavretskiy think that the latter's wife is dead — so it 
stood, at least, in a Paris feuilleton; but the lady reappears 
bringing with her all her abominable atmosphere, and Liza 
goes to a convent. Unlike Rudin or Bazaroff, all the persons 
of this drama, as well as the drama itself, are quite familiar 
to the average reader, and for merely that reason the 
novel appealed to an extremely wide circle of sympathisers. 
Of course, the artistic powers of Turgueneff appear with 
a wonderful force in the representation of such types as 
Liza and Lavretskiy's wife, Liza's old aunt, and Lavretskiy 
himself. The note of poetry and sadness which pervades the 
novel carries away the reader completely. And yet, I may 

i venture to say, the following novel. On the Eve, far super- 
seded the former both in the depth of its conception and the 
beauty of its workmanship. 

Already, in Natasha, Turgueneff had given a life-picture 
of a Russian girl who has grown up in the quietness of village 
life, but has in her heart, and mind, and will the germs of 
that which moves human beings to higher action. Rudin's 
spirited words, his appeals to what is grand and worth living 
for, inflamed her. She was ready to follow him, to support 



TURGU^NEFF loi 

him In the great work which he so eagerly and uselessly 
searched for, but it was he who proved to be her inferior. 
Turgueneff thus foresaw, since 1855, ^^^ coming of that type 
of woman who later on played so prominent a part in the 
revival of Young Russia. Four years later, In On the Eve, 
he gave, in Helen, a further and fuller development of the 
same type. Helen is not satisfied with the dull, trifling life in 
her own family, and she longs for a wider sphere of action. 
" To be good is not enough; to do good — yes; that Is the 
great thing in life," she writes in her diary. But whom does 
she meet In her surroundings? Shubin, a talented artist, a 
spoiled child, " a butterfly which admires Itself "; Berseneff, 
a future professor, a true Russian nature — an excellent man, 
most unselfish and modest, but wanting inspiration, totally 
lacking In vigour and initiative. These two are the best. There 
Is a m.oment when Shubin, as he rambles on a summer night 
with his friend Berseneff, says to him: " I love Helen, but 
Helen loves you. . . . Sing, sing louder, if you can; and If 
you cannot, then take off your hat, look above, and smile 
to the stars. They all look upon you, upon you alone: they 
always look on those who are In love." But Berseneff returns 
to his small room, and — opens Raumer's ^' History of the 
Hohenstauffens," on the same page where he had left it the 
last time. . . . 

Thereupon comes Insaroff, a Bulgarian patriot, entirely 
absorbed by one Idea — the liberation of his mother-country ; 
a man of steel, rude to the touch, who has cast away all 
melancholy philosophical dreaming, and marches straight 
forward, towards the aim of his life — and the choice of 
Helen Is settled. The pages given to the awakening of her 
feeling and to its growth are among the best ever written by 
Turgueneff. When Insaroff suddenly becomes aware of his 
own love for Helen, his first decision Is to leave at once the 
suburb of Moscow, where they are all staying, and Russia as 
well. He goes to Helen's house to announce there his depar- 
ture. Helen asks him to promise that he will see her again 
to-morrow before he leaves, but he does not promise. Helen 
waits for him, and when he has not come in the afternoon, 
she herself goes to him. Rain and thunder overtake her on 
the road, and she steps Into an old chapel by the roadside. 



i/ 



I02 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

There she meets Insaroff, and the explanation between the 
shy, modest girl who perceives that Insaroff loves her, and 
the patriot, who discovers in her the force which, far from 
standing in his way, would only double his own energy, 
terminates by Insaroff exclaiming : " Well, then, welcome, 
my wife before God and men ! " 

In Helen we have the true type of that Russian woman 
who a few years later joined heart and soul in all movements 
for Russian freedom: the woman who conquered her right 
to knowledge, totally reformed the education of children, 
fought for the liberation of the toiling masses, endured un- 
broken in the snows and gaols of Siberia, died if necessary on 
the scaffold, and at the present moment continues with un- 
abated energy the same struggle. The high artistic beauty of 
this novel has already been incidentally mentioned. Only one 
reproach can be made to it: the hero, Insaroff, the man of 
action, is not sufficiently living. But both for the general 
architecture of the novel and the beauty of its separate 
scenes, beginning with the very first and ending with the last. 
On the Eve stands among the highest productions of the sort 
in all literatures. 

The next novel of Turgueneff was Fathers and Sons, It 
was writen in 1859 when, instead of the sentimentalists and 
** aesthetical " people of old, quite a new type of man was 
making its appearance In the educated portion of Russian 
society — the nihilist. Those who have not read Turgueneff^s 
works will perhaps associate the word " nihilist " with the 
struggle which took place in Russia in 1 879-1 881 between 
the autocratic power and the terrorists; but this would be a 
great mistake. " Nihilism " is not " terrorism," and the type 
of the nihilist is infinitely deeper and wider than that of a 
terrorist. Turgueneff's Fathers and Sons must be read in 
order to understand it. The representative of this type in the 
novel Is a young doctor, Bazaroff — " a man who bows before 
no authority, however venerated it may be, and accepts of no 
principle unproved." Consequently he takes a negative atti- 
tude towards all the institutions of the present time and he 
throws overboard all the conventionalities and the petty lies 
of ordinary society life. He comes on a visit to his old parents 



TURGUENEFF 103 

and stays also at the country house of a young friend of his, 
whose father and uncle are two typical representatives of the 
old generation. This gives to Turgueneft the possibility of 
illustrating in a series of masterly scenes the conflict between 
the two generations — *' the fathers " and " the sons." That 
conflict was going on in those years with bitter acrimony all 
over Russia. 

One of the two brothers, Nikolai Petrovitch, is an excel- 
lent, slightly enthusiastic dreamer who in his youth was fond 
of Schiller and Pushkin, but never took great interest in 
practical matters; he now lives, on his estate, the lazy life of 
a landowner. He would like, however, to show to the young 
people that he, too, can go a long way with them: he tries to 
read the materialistic books which his son and Bazaroff read, 
and even to speak their language; but his entire education 
stands in the way of a true " realistic " comprehension of the 
real state of affairs. 

The elder brother, Peter Petrovitch, is, on the contrary, a 
direct descendant from Lermontoff's Petchorin — that is, a 
thorough, well-bred egotist. Having spent his youth in 
high society circles, he, even now in the dulness of the small 
country estate, considers it as a " duty " to be always prop- 
erly dressed " as a perfect gentleman," strictly to obey the 
rules of " Society," to remain faithful to Church and State, 
and never to abandon his attitude of extreme reserve — which 
he abandons, however, every time that he enters into a dis- 
cussion about '' principles " with Bazaroff. The " nihilist " 
inspires him with hatred. 

The nihilist is, of course, the out-and-out negation of all 
the " principles " of Peter Petrovitch. He does not believe 
in the established principles of Church and State, and openly 
professes a profound contempt for all the established forms 
of society-life. He does not see that the wearing of a clean 
collar and a perfect necktie should be described as the per- 
formance of a duty. When he speaks, he says what he 
thinks. Absolute sincerity — not only in what he says, but 
also towards himself — and a common sense standard of 
judgments, without the old prejudices, are the ruling features 
of his character. This leads, evidently, to a certain assumed 
roughness of expression, and the conflict between the two 



I04 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

generations must necessarily take a tragical aspect. So It 
was everywhere In Russia at that time. The novel expressed 
the real tendency of the time and accentuated It, so that — as 
has been remarked by a gifted Russian critic, S. Vengueroff 
— the novel and the reality mutually Influenced each other. 

Fathers and Sons produced a tremendous Impression. 
Turgueneff was assailed on all sides: by the old generation, 
which reproached him with being '^ a nihilist himself " ; and 
by the youth, which was discontented at being Identified with 
Bazaroff. The truth Is that, with a very few exceptions, 
among whom was the great critic, Pisareff, we do not prop- 
erly understand Bazaroff. Turgueneff had so much ac- 
customed us to a certain poetical halo which surrounded his 
heroes, and to his own tender love which followed them, even 
when he condemned them, that finding nothing of the sort In 
his attitude towards Bazaroff, we saw In the absence of these 
features a decided hostility of the author towards the hero. 
Moreover, certain features of Bazaroff decidedly displeased 
us. Why should a man of his powers display such a harsh- 
ness towards his old parents: his loving mother and his 
father — the poor old village-doctor who has retained, to 
old age, faith in his science. Why should Bazaroff fall in 
love with that most uninteresting, self-admlring lady, 
Madame Odintsoff, and fail to be loved, even by her? And 
then why, at a time when in the young generation the seeds of 
a great movement towards freeing the masses were already 
ripening, why make Bazaroff say that he is ready to work for 
the peasant, but if somebody comes and says to him that he 
IS bound to do so, he will hate that peasant? To which Bazar- 
off adds, in a moment of reflection: "And what of that? 
Grass will grow out of me when this peasant acquires well- 
being! " We did not understand this attitude of Turgueneff's 
nihilist, and It was only on re-reading Fathers and Sons much 
later on, that we noticed, in the very words that so offended 
us, the germs of a realistic philosophy of solidarity and duty 
which only now begins to take a more or less definite shape. 
In i860 we, the young generation, looked on It as Turgue- 
neff's desire to throw a stone at a new type with which he did 
not sympathise. 

And yet, as Pisareff understood at once, Bazaroff was a 



TURGU^NEFF 105 

real representative of the young generation. Turgueneff, as 
he himself wrote later on, merely did not *' add syrup " to 
make his hero appear somewhat sweeter. 

" Bazaroff," he wrote, ** puts all the other personalities of my 
novel in the shade. He is honest, straightforward, and a democrat 
of the purest water, and you find no good qualities in him! The duel 
with Petr Petrovitch is only introduced to show the intellectual 
emptiness of the elegant, noble knighthood; in fact, I even exag- 
gerated and made it ridiculous. My conception of Bazaroff is such as 
to make him appear throughout much superior to Petr Petrovitch. 
Nevertheless, when he calls himself nihilist you must read revolu- 
tionist. To draw on one side a functionafy who takes bribes, and on 
the other an ideal youth — I leave it to others to make such pictures. 
My aim was much higher than that. I conclude with one remark: If 
the reader is not won by BazarofE, notwithstanding his roughness, 
absence of heart, pitiless dryness and terseness, then the fault is with 
me — I have missed my aim; but to sweeten him with syrup (to use 
Bazaroff 's own language), this I did not want to do, although per- 
haps through that I would have won Russian youth at once to my 
side." 

The true key to the understanding of Fathers and Sons, 
and, In fact, of whatever Turgueneff wrote. Is given, I will 
permit myself to suggest. In his admirable lecture, Hamlet 
and Don Quixote (i860). I have already elsewhere In- 
timated this ; but I am bound to repeat It here, as I think that, 
better than any other of Turgueneff's writings, this lecture 
enables us to look Into the very philosophy of the great 
novelist. Hamlet and Don Quixote — Turgueneff wrote — per- 
sonify the two opposite particularities of human nature. All 
men belong more or less to the one or to the other of these 
two types. And, with his wonderful powers of analysis, he 
thus characterised the two heroes : 

" Don Quixote is imbued with devotion towards his ideal, for 
which he is ready to sufFer all possible privations, to sacrifice his life ; 
life itself he values only so far as it can serve for the incarnation 
of the ideal, for the promotion of truth, of justice on Earth. . . . 
He lives for his brothers, for opposing the forces hostile to mankind : 
the witches, the giants — that is, the oppressors. . . . Therefore 
he is fearless, patient; he is satisfied with the most modest food, the 



io6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

poorest cloth: he has other things to think of. Humble in his heart, 
he is great and daring in his mind." ..." And who is Hamlet? 
Analysis, first of all, and egotism, and therefore no faith. He lives 
entirely for himself, he is an egotist ; but to believe in one's self — even 
an egotist cannot do that: we can believe only in something which is 
outside us and above us ... As he has doubts of everything, Hamlet 
evidently does not spare himself; his intellect is too developed to re- 
main satisfied with what he finds in himself: he feels his weakness, 
but each self-consciousness is a force wherefrom results his irony, 
the opposite of the enthusiam of Don Quixote." ..." Don 
Quixote, a poor man, almost a beggar, without means and relations, 
old, isolated — undertakes to redress all the evils and to protect op- 
pressed strangers over the whole earth. What does it matter to him that 
his first attempt at freeing the innocent from his oppressor falls twice 
as heavy upon the head of the innocent himself? . . . What does 
it matter that, thinking that he has to deal with noxious giants, Don 
Quixote attacks useful windmills? . . . Nothing of the sort can 
ever happen with Hamlet: how could he, with his perspicacious, re- 
fined, sceptical mind, ever commit such a mistake! No, he will not 
fight with windmills, he does not believe In giants . . . but he 
would not have attacked them even if they did exist. . . . And 
yet, although Hamlet is a sceptic, although he disbelieves in good, 
he does not believe in evil. Evil and deceit are his inveterate enemies. 
His scepticism is not indifferentlsm." ..." But in negation, as 
in fire, there is a destructive power, and how to keep it in bounds, 
how to tell it where to stop, when that which it must destroy, and 
that which it must spare are often inseparably welded together? 
Here it is that the often-noticed tragical aspect of human life comes 
in: for action we require will, and for action we require thought; 
but thought and will have parted from each other, and separate 
every day more and more. . . . 

" And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o*er by the pale cast of thought, . . ." 

This lecture fully explains, I believe, the attitude of Tur- 
gueneff towards Bazarolf. He himself belonged to a great 
extent to the Hamlets. Among them he had his best friends. 
He loved Hamlet; yet he admired Don Quixote — the man 
of action. He felt his superiority; but, while describing this 
second type of men, he never could surround It with that 
tender poetical love for a sick friend which makes the irresis- 
tible attraction of those of his novels which deal with one 



TURGUfeNEFF 107 

or other of the Hamlet type. He admired Bazdroff — his 
roughness as well as his power; Bazaroff overpowered him; 
but he could by no means have for him the tender feelings 
which he had had for men of his own generation and his 
own refinement. In fact, with Bazaroff they would have been 
out of place. 

This we did not notice at that time, and therefore we did 
not understand Turgueneff's intention of representing the 
tragic position of Bazaroff amidst his surroundings. " I 
entirely share Bazaroff's ideas," he wrote later on. " All of 
them, with the exception of his negation of art." *' I loved 
Bazarpff ; I wmII prove it to you by my diary," he told me once 
in Paris. Certainly he loved him — but with an intellectually 
admiring love, quite different from the compassionate love 
which he had bestowed upon Rudin and Lavretskiy. This dif- 
ference escaped us, and was the chief cause of the misunder- 
standing which was so painful for the great poet. 

Turgueneff's next novel. Smoke ( 1 867 ) , need not be dwelt 
upon. One object he had in it was to represent the powerful 
type of a Russian society lioness, which had haunted him for 
years, and to which he returned several times, until he finally 
succeeded in finding for it, in Spring Flood, the fullest and 
the most perfect artistic expression. His other object was to 
picture in Its true colours the shallov/ness — nay, the silliness, 
of that society of bureaucrats Into whose hands Russia fell 
for the next twenty years. Deep despair In the future of 
Russia after the wreck of that great reform movement which 
had given to us the abolition of serfdom pervades the novel; 
a despair which can by no means be attributed entirely, or 
even chiefly, to the hostile reception of Fathers and Sons by 
the Russian youth, but must be sought for In the wreck of the 
great hopes which Turgueneff and his best friends had laid In 
the representatives of the reform movement of 1 859-1 863. 
This same despair made Turgueneff write " Enough; from 
the Memoirs of a Dead Artist ^^ (1865), and the fantastic 
sketch, " Ghosts'* (1867), and he recovered from It only 
when he saw the birth in Russia of a new movement, 
" towards the people I " which took place amongst our youth 
In the early seventies. 



V 



io8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

This movement he represented In his last novel of the 
above-mentioned series, Virgin Soil (1876). That he was 
fully sympathetic with it Is self-evident; but the question, 
whether his novel gives a correct Idea of the movement, must 
be answered to some extent In the negative — even though 
Turgueneff had, with his wonderful Intuition, caught some of 
the most striking features of the movement. The novel was 
finished In 1876 (we read It, In a full set of proofs, at the 
house of P. L. Lavroff, In London, In the autumn of that 
year) — that means, two years before the great trial of those 
who were arrested for this agitation took place. And in 1876 
no one could possibly have known the youth of our circles 
unless he had himself belonged to them. Consequently, Fir- 
gin Soil could only refer to the very earliest phases of the 
movement: misconception of the peasantry, the peculiar Inca- 
dld not meet with any of the best representativs of It. Much 
of the novel Is true, but the general impression it conveys Is 
not precisely the impression which Turgueneff himself would 
have received if he had better known the Russian youth at 
that time. 

With all the force of his immense talent, he could not 
supply by Intuition the lack of knowledge. And yet he under- 
stood two characteristic features of the earliest part of the 
movement : misconception of the peasantry, the peculiar inca- 
pacity of most of the early promoters of the movement 
to understand the Russian peasant, on account of the bias 
of their false literary, historical, and social education; and 
the Hamletism: the want of resolution, or rather "reso- 
lution sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought," which really 
characterised the movement at its outset. If Turgueneff had 
lived a few years more he surely would have noticed coming 
into the arena the new type of men of action — the new modi- 
fication of Insaroff's and Bazaroff's type, which grew up in 
proportion as the movement was taking firm root. He had 
already perceived them through the dryness of official records 
of the trial of " the hundred-and-ninety three," and in 1878 
he asked me to tell him all I knew about Myshkin, one of the 
most powerful individualities of that trial. 

He did not live to accomplish this. A disease which nobody 
understood and was mistaken for " gout," but which was in 



TURGUi^NEFF 109 

reality a cancer of the spinal cord, kept him for the last few 
years of his life an invalid, rivetted to his couch. Only his 
letters, full of thought and life, where sadness and merriment 
go on in turn, are what remains from his pen during that 
period of life, when he seems to have meditated upon several 
novels which he left unfinished or perhaps unwritten. He died 
at Paris in 1883 at the age of sixty-five. 

In conclusion, a few words, at least, must be said about 
his ''Verse in Prose/' or '' Senilia'' (1882). These are 
*' flying remarks, thoughts, images," which he wrote down 
from 1878 onwards under the impression of this or that fact 
of his own personal life, or of public life. Though written in 
prose, they are true pieces of excellent poetry, some of them 
real gems; some deeply touching and as impressive as the 
best verses of the best poets {Old Woman; The Beggar; 
Mdsha; How Beautiful, how Fresh were the Roses) ; wnile 
others {Nature, The Dog) are more characteristic of 
Turgueneff's philosophical conceptions than anything else 
he has written. And finally, in On the Threshold, written a 
few months before his death, he expressed in most poetical 
accents his admiration of those women who gave their lives 
for the revolutionary movement and went on the scaffold, 
without being even understood at the time by those for whom 
they died. 

TOLSTOY CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD 

More than half a century ago, i. e. in 1852, the first story 
of Tolstoy, Childhood, soon followed by Boyhood, made its 
appearance in the monthly review, The Contemporary, with 
the modest signature, " L. N. T." The little story was a 
great success. It was imbued with such a charm ; it had such 
freshness, and was so free of all the mannerism of the literary 
trade, that the unknown author at once became a favourite, 
and was placed by the side of Turgueneff and Gontcharoff . 

There are excellent children stories in all languages. Child- 
hood is the period of life with which many authors have best 
succeeded in dealing. And yet no one, perhaps, has so well 
described the life of children from within, from their own 
point of view, as Tolstoy did. With him, it is the child itself 



no RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

which expresses its childish feelings, and it does this so as to 
compel the reader to judge full-grown people with the child's 
point of view. Such is the realism of Childhood and Boy- 
hood — that is, their richness in facts caught from real life — 
that a Russian critic, Pisareff, developed quite a theory of 
education chiefly on the basis of the data contained in these 
two stories of Tolstoy's. 

It is related somewhere that one day, during their rambles 
In the country, Turgueneff and Tolstoy came across an old 
hack of a horse which was finishing its days in a lonely field. 
Tolstoy entered at once into the feelings of the horse and 
began to describe its sad reflections so vividly, that Tur- 
gueneff, alluding to the then new ideas of Darwinism, could 
not help exclaiming, " I am sure, Lyov Nikolaevitch, that 
you must have had horses among your ancestors ! " In the 
capacity of entirely identifying himself with the feelings and 
the thoughts of the beings of whom he speaks, Tolstoy has 
but few rivals; but with children this power of Identification 
attains Its highest degree. The moment he speaks of children, 
Tolstoy becomes himself a child. 

Childhood and Boyhood are, It Is now known, autobio- 
graphical stories. In which only small details are altered, and 
in the boy Irteneff we have a glimpse of what L. N. Tolstoy 
was In his childhood. He was born In 1828, In the estate of 
Yasnaya Polyana, which now enjoys universal fame, and for 
the first fifteen years of his life he remained, almost without 
Interruption, an Inhabitant of the country. His father and 
grandfather — so we are told by the Russian critic, S. Ven- 
gueroff — are described In PFar and Peace, In Nicholas Ros- 
toff and the old Count Rostoff respectively ; while his mother, 
who was born a Princess Volkhonskaya, Is represented as 
Mary Bolkonskaya. Leo Tolstoy lost his mother at the age 
of two, and his father at the age of nine, and after that time 
his education was taken care of by a woman relative, T. A. 
Ergolskaya, In Yasnaya Polyana, and after 1840, at Kazan, 
by his aunt P. I. Yiishkova, whose house, we are told, must 
have been very much the same as the house of the Rostoff's 
in War and Peace. 

Leo Tolstoy was only fifteen when he entered the Kazan 
University, where he spent two years In the Oriental faculty 



tolst6y 1 1 1 

and two years in the faculty of Law. However, the teaching- 
staff of both faculties was so feeble at that time that only a 
single professor was able to awaken in the young man some 
passing interest in his subject. Four years later, that is in 
1847, when he was only nineteen, Leo Tolstoy had already 
left the University and was making at Yasnaya Polyana some 
attempts at improving the conditions of his peasant serfs, of 
which attempts he has told us later on, with such a striking 
sincerity, in The Morning of a Landlord. 

The next four years of his life he spent, externally, like 
most young men of his aristocratic circle, but internally, in a 
continual reaction against the life he was leading. An insight 
Into what he was then — slightly exaggerated, of course, and 
dramatised — we can get from the Notes of a Billiard 
Marker. Happily he could not put up with such paltry sur- 
roundings and in 1851, he suddenly renounced the life he 
had hitherto led — that of an idle aristocratic youth — and 
following his brother Nicholas, he went to the Caucasus, in 
order to enter military service. There he stayed first at 
Pyatigorsk — the place so full of reminiscences of Lermon- 
toff — until, having passed the necessary examinations, he 
was received as a non-commissioned officer {yunker) in the 
artillery and went to serve In a Cossack village on the banks 
of the Terek. 

His experiences and reflections in these new surroundings, 
we know from his Cossacks. But It was there also that In the 
face of the beautiful nature which had so powerfully Inspired 
Pushkin and Lermontoff he found his true vocation. He 
sent to the Contemporary his first literary experiment, 
Childhood, and this first story, as he soon learned from a 
letter of the poet Nekrasoff, editor of the review, and from 
the critical notes of Grigorleff, Annenkoff, Druzhinin, and 
Tchernyshevskly (they belonged to four different aesthetical 
schools) , proved to be a chef d'csuvre, 

DURING AND AFTER THE CRIMEAN WAR 

However, the great Crimean war began towards the end 
of the next year (1853), and L. N. Tolstoy did not want to 
remain inactive In the Caucasus army. He obtained his trans- 



112 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

fer to the Danube army, took part in the siege of Silistrla, 
and later on in the battle of Balaklava, and from November, 
1854, till August, 1855, remained besieged in Sebastopol — 
partly in the terrible " Fourth bastion," where he lived 
through all the dreadful experiences of the heroic defenders 
of that fortress. He has therefore the right to speak of War : 
he knows it from within. He knows what it is, even under Its 
very best aspects, in such a significant and inspired phase as 
was the defence of these forts and bastions which had grown 
up under the enemy's shells. He obstinately refused during 
the siege to become an officer of the Staff, and remained with 
his battery in the most dangerous spots. 

I perfectly well remember, although I was only twelve 
or thirteen, the profound impression which his sketch, Sebas- 
topol in December, 1854, followed, after the fall of the fort- 
ress, by two more Sebastopol sketches — produced in Russia. 
The very character of these sketches was original. They were 
not leaves from a diary, and yet they were as true to reality 
as such leaves could be ; In fact, even more true, because they 
were not representing one corner only of real life — the 
corner which accidentally fell under the writer's observa- 
tions — but the whole life, the prevailing modes of thought 
and the habits of life in the besieged fortress. They repre- 
sented — and this is characteristic of all subsequent works of 
Tolstoy — an interweaving of Dichtung and Wahrheit, of 
poetry and truth, truth and poetry, containing much more 
truth than is usually found In a novel, and more poetry, more 
poetical creation, than occurs in most works of pure fiction. 

Tolstoy apparently never wrote In verse; but during the 
siege of Sebastopol he composed, in the usual metre and 
language of soldiers' songs, a satirical song in which he 
described the blunders of the commanders which ended in 
the Balaklava disaster. The song, written In an admirable 
popular style, could not be printed, but it spread over Russia 
in thousands of copies and was widely sung, both during 
and Immediately after the campaign. The name of the author 
also leaked out, but there was some uncertainty as to whether 
it was the author of the Sebastopol sketches or some other 
Tolstoy. 

On his return from Sebastopol and the conclusion of 



tolst6y 113 

peace (1856) Tolstoy stayed partly at St. Petersburg and 
partly at Yasnaya Polyana. In the capital he was received 
with open arms by all classes of society, both literary and 
worldly, as a " Sebastopol hero " and as a rising great 
writer. But of the life he lived then he cannot speak now 
otherwise than with disgust: It was the life of hundreds of 
young men — officers of the Guard and jeiinesse doree of his 
own class — which was passed In the restaurants and cafes 
chantants of the Russian capital, amidst gamblers, horse 
dealers, Tslgane choirs, and French adventuresses. He be- 
came at that time friendly with Turgueneff and saw much of 
him, both at St. Petersburg and at Yasnaya Polyana — the 
estates of the two great writers being not very far from each 
other; but, although his friend Turgueneff was taking then a 
lively part In co-edlting with Herzen the famous revolution- 
ary^ paper, The Bell (see Chapter VIII.), Tolstoy, seems to 
have taken no Interest In It; and while he was well acquainted 
with the editing staff of the then famous review. The Con- 
temporary , which was fighting the good fight for the libera- 
tion of the peasants and for freedom In general, Tolstoy, for 
one reason or another, never became friendly with the Radical 
leaders of that review — Tchernyshevsky, Dobroluboff, Mik- 
hailoff, and their friends. 

Altogether, the great intellectual and reform movement 
which was going on then in Russia seems to have left him 
cold. He did not join the party of reforms. Still less was he 
inclined to join those young Nihilists whom Turgueneff had 
portrayed to the best of his ability In Fathers and Sons, or 
later on in the seventies, the youth whose watchword be- 
came : " Be the people," and with whom Tolstoy has so much 
in common at the present time. What was the reason of that 
estrangement we are unable to say. Was it that a deep 
chasm separated the young epicuraean aristocrat from the 
ultra-democratic writers, like Dobroluboff, who worked at 
spreading socialistic and democratic ideas in Russia, and still 
more from those who, like Rakhmetoff in Tchernyshevsky's 
novel What is to be done, lived the life of the peasant, thus 
practising then what Tolstoy began to preach twenty years 
later? 

Or, was It the difference between the two generations 



114 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

— the man of thirty or more, which Tolstoy was, and the 
young people in their early twenties, possessed of all the 
haughty intolerance of youth, — which kept them aloof from 
each other. And was it not, in addition to all this, the result of 
theories? namely, a fundamental difference in the conceptions 
of the advanced Russian Radicals, who at that time were 
mostly admirers of Governmental Jacobinism, and the 
Populist, the No-Government man which Tolstoy must have 
already then been, since it distinctly appeared in his negative 
attitude towards Western civilisation, and especially in the 
educational work which he began in 1861 in the Yasnaya 
Polyana school? 

The novels which Tolstoy brought out during these years, 
1 856-1 862, do not throw much light upon his state of mind, 
because, even though they are to a great extent autobio- 
graphical, they mostly relate to earlier periods of his life. 
Thus, he published two more of his Sebastopol war-sketches. 
All his powers of observation and war-psychology, all his 
deep comprehension of the Russian soldier, and especially of 
the plain, un-theatrical hero who really wins the battles, and 
a profound understanding of that inner spirit of an army 
upon which depend success and failure : everything, in short, 
which developed into the beauty and the truthfulness of War 
and Peace was already manifested in these sketches, which 
undoubtedly represented a new departure in war-literature 
the world over. 

YOUTH : IN SEARCH OF AN IDEAL 

Youth, The Morning of a Landed Proprietor, and Lu- 
cerne appeared during the same years, but they produced 
upon us readers, as well as upon the literary critics, a strange 
and rather unfavourable impression. The great writer re- 
mained; and his talent was showing evident signs of growth, 
while the problems of life which he touched upon were deep- 
ening and widening; but the heroes who seemed to represent 
the ideas of the author himself could not entirely win our 
sympathies. In Childhood and Boyhood we had had before 
us the boy Irteneff. Now, in Youth, Irteneff makes the ac- 
quaintance of Prince Nekludoff; they become great friends, 



tolst6y 115 

and promise, without the slightest reservation, to confess to 
each other their moral failings. Of course, they do not 
always keep this promise; but it leads them to continual self- 
probing, to a repentance one moment which is forgotten the 
next, and to an unavoidable duality of mind which has the 
most debilitating effect upon the two young men^s character. 
The ill results of these moral endeavours Tolstoy did not 
conceal. He detailed them with the greatest Imaginable sin- 
cerity, but he seemed nevertheless to keep them before his 
readers as something desirable; and with this we could not 
agree. 

Youth Is certainly the age when higher moral Ideals find 
their way into the mind of the future man or woman; the 
years when one strives to get rid of the Imperfections of boy- 
hood or girlhood; but this aim is never attained in the 
ways recommended at monasteries and Jesuit schools. The 
only proper way is to open before the young mind new, 
broad horizons; to free it from superstitions and fears; to 
grasp man's position amidst Nature and Mankind; and 
especially to feel at one with some great cause and to nurture 
one's forces with the view of being able some day to struggle 
for that cause. Idealism — that is, the capacity of conceiving 
a poetical love towards something great, and to prepare for 
it — is the only sure preservation from all that destroys the 
vital forces of man : vice, dissipation, and so on. This inspira- 
tion, this love of an Ideal, the Russian youth used to find in 
the student circles, of which Turgueneff has left us such 
spirited descriptions. Instead of that, Irteneff and Nekludoff, 
remaining during their university years in their splendid 
aristocratic isolation, are unable to conceive a higher ideal 
worth living for, and spent their forces in vain endeavours of 
semi-rellglous moral improvement, on a plan that may per- 
haps succeed In the Isolation of a monastery, but usually ends 
in failure amidst the attractions lying round a young man 
of the world. These failures Tolstoy relates, as usual, with 
absolute earnestness and sincerity. 

The Morning of a handed Proprietor produced again a 
strange impression. The story deals with the unsuccessful 
philanthropic endeavours of a serf-owner who tries to make 
his serfs happy and wealthy — without ever thinking of begin- 



ii6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

ning where he ought to begin: namely, of setting his slaves 
free. In those years of liberation of the serfs and enthusiastic 
hopes, such a story sounded as an anachronism — the more 
so as It was not known at the time of Its appearance that It 
was a page from Tolstoy's earlier autobiography relating to 
the year 1847, when he settled In Yasnaya Polyana, Im- 
mediately after having left the University, and when 
extremely few thought of liberating the serfs. It was one of 
those sketches of which Brandes has so truly said that In them 
Tolstoy '' thinks aloud " about some page of his own life. It 
thus produced a certain mixed, undefined feeling. And yet 
one could not but admire In it the same great objective talent 
that was so striking in Childhood and the Sebastopol sketches. 
In speaking of peasants who received with distrust the mea- 
sures with which their lord was going to benefit them, it 
would have been so easy, so humanly natural, for an educated 
man to throw upon their ignorance their unwillingness to 
accept the threshing machine (which, by the way, did not 
work) , or the refusal of a peasant to accept the free gift of 

a stone house (which was far from the village) But 

not a shade of that sort of pleading in favour of the landlord 
is to be found in the story, and the thinking reader neces- 
sarily concludes in favour of the common sense of the 
peasants. 

Then came Lucerne, It is told in that story how the same 
Nekludoff, bitterly struck by the Indifference of a party of 
English tourists who sat on the balcony of a rich Swiss hotel 
and refused to throw even a few pennies to a poor singer 
to whose songs they had listened with evident emotion, brings 
the singer to the hotel, takes him to the dinlng-hall, to the 
great scandal of the English visitors, and treats him there to 
a bottle of champagne. The feelings of Nekludoff are cer- 
tainly very just; but while reading this story one suffers all 
the while for the poor musician, and experiences a sense of 
anger against the Russian nobleman who uses him as a rod to 
chastise the tourists, without even noticing how he makes the 
old man miserable during this lesson in morals. The worst of 
it is that the author, too, seems not to remark the false note 
which rings in the conduct of Nekludoff, nor to realise how a 
man with really humane feelings would have taken the singer 



TOLSTdY 117 

to some small wine-shop and would have had with him a 
friendly talk over a picholette of common wine. Yet we see 
again all Tolstoy's force of talent. He so honestly, so fully, 
and so truly describes the uneasiness of the singer during the 
whole scene that the reader's unavoidable conclusion is that 
although the young aristocrat was right in protesting against 
stone-heartedness, his ways were as unsympathetic as those of 
the self-contented Englishmen at the hotel. Tolstoy's artistic 
power carries him beyond and above his theories. 

This is not the only case where such a remark may be made 
concerning Tolstoy's work. His appreciation of this or that 
action, of this or that of his heroes, may be wrong; his own 
*' philosophy " may be open to objection; but the force of his 
descriptive talent and his literary honesty are always so 
great, that he will often make the feelings and actions of his 
heroes speak against their creator, and prove something very 
different from what he intended to prove.* This is probably 
why Turgueneff, and apparently other literary friends, too, 
told him: " Don't put your ' philosophy into your art.' Trust 
to your artistic feeling, and you will create great things." In 
fact, notwithstanding Tolstoy's distrust of science, I must say 
that I always feel in reading his works that he is possessed 
of the most scientific insight I know of among artists. He may 
be wrong in his conclusions, but never is he wrong in his 
statement of data. True science and true art are not hostile to 
each other, but always work in harmony. 

SMALL STORIES THE COSSACKS 

Several of Tolstoy's novels and stories appeared In the 
years 1 857-1 862 {The Snow-Storm, The Two Hussars, 
Three Deaths, The Cossacks) and each one of them won 
new admiration for his talent. The first Is a mere trifle, and 

* This has struck most critics. Thus, speaking of War and Peace, 
Pisareff wrote : " The images he has created have their own life, 
independently of the intentions of the author; they enter into direct 
relations with the readers, speak for themselves, and unavoidably 
bring the reader to such thoughts and conclusions as the author 
never had in view and of which he, perhaps, would not approve." 
{Works, VI. p. 420.) 



ii8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

yet it Is a gem of art; it concerns the wanderings of a traveller 
during a snow-storm, in the plains of Central Russia. The 
same remark is true of the Two Hussars^ in which two gen- 
erations are sketched on a few pages with striking accuracy. 
As to the deeply pantheistic Three Deaths, in which the death 
of a rich lady, a poor horse-driver, and a birch-tree are con- 
trasted, it is a piece of poetry In prose that deserves a place 
beside Goethe's best pieces of pantheistic poetry, while for its 
social significance it is already a forerunner of the Tolstoy of 
the later epoch. 

The Cossacks is an autobiographical novel, and relates to 
the time, already mentioned on a previous page, when Tol- 
stoy at twenty- four, running away from the meaningless life 
he was living, w^ent to Pyatigorsk, and then to a lonely Cos- 
sack village on the Terek, hunted there In company with the 
old Cossack Yeroshka and the young Lukashka, and found 
In the poetical enjoyment of a beautiful nature. In the plain 
life of these squatters, and In the mute adoration of a Cos- 
sack girl, the awakening of his wonderful literary genius. 

The appearance of this novel, In which one feels a most 
genuine touch of genius, provoked violent discussions. It 
was begun in 1852, but was not published till i860, when 
all Russia was awaiting with anxiety the results of the work 
of the Abolition of Serfdom Committees, foreseeing that 
when serfdom should be done away with a complete destruc- 
tion of all other rotten, obsolete, and barbarous Institutions of 
past ages would have to begin. For this great work of reform 
Russia looked to Western civilisation for inspiration and for 
teachings. And there came a young writer who, following In 
the steps of Rousseau, revolted against that civilisation and 
preached a return to nature and the throwing off of the 
artificialities we call civilised life, which are In reality a poor 
substitute for the happiness of free work amidst a free na- 
ture. Everyone knows by this time the dominant Idea of The 
Cossacks. It Is the contrast between the natural life of these 
sons of the prairies and the artificial life of the young officer 
thrown In their midst. He tells of strong men who are similar 
to the American squatters, and have been developed in the 
Steppes at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, by a perilous 
life, in which force, endurance, and calm courage are a first 



tolst6y 119 

necessity. Into their midst comes one of the sickly products 
of our semi-intellectual town life, and at every step he feels 
himself the inferior of the Cossack Lukashka. He wishes to 
do something on a grand scale, but has neither the intellectual 
nor the physical force to accomplish it. Even his love is not 
the strong healthy love of the prairie man, but a sort of 
slight excitement of the nerves, which evidently will not last, 
and which only produces a similar restlessness in the Cossack 
girl, but cannot carry her away. And when he talks to her of 
love, in the force of which he himself does not believe, she 
sends him off with the words: " Go away, you weakling! " 
Some saw in that powerful novel such glorification of the 
semi-savage state as that in which writers of the eighteenth 
century, and especially Rousseau, are supposed to have in- 
dulged. There is In Tolstoy nothing of the sort, as there was 
nothing of the sort In Rousseau. But Tolstoy saw that In the 
life of the Cossacks there is more vitality, more vigour, more 
power, than in his well-born hero's life — and he told it in a 
beautiful and Impressive form. His hero — like whom there 
are thousands upon thousands — has none of the powers that 
come from manual work and struggle with nature; and 
neither has he those powers which knowledge and true civil- 
isation might have given him. A real intellectual power is 
not asking itself at every moment, " Am I right, or am I 
wrong? " It feels that there are principles in which it is not 
wrong. The same is true of a moral force : it knows that to 
such an extent It can trust to Itself. But, like so many thou- 
sands of men in the so-called educated classes, Nekludoff has 
neither of these powers. He is a weakling, and Tolstoy 
brought out his intellectual and moral frailty with a distinct- 
ness that was bound to produce a deep impression. 

EDUCATIONAL WORK 

In the years 1 859-1 862 the struggle between the 
" fathers " and the " sons " which called forth violent at- 
tacks against the young generation, even from such an " ob- 
jective " writer as Gontcharoff — to say nothing of Pisemskiy 
and several others, — was going on all over Russia. But we 
do not know which side had Tolstoy's sympathy. It must be 



I20 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

said, though, that most of this time he was abroad, with his 
elder brother Nicholas, who died of consumption in the south 
of France. All we know is that the failure of Western civilisa- 
tion in attaining any approach to well-being and equality for 
the great masses of the people deeply struck Tolstoy; and 
we are told by Vengueroff that the only men of mark whom 
he went to see during this journey abroad were Auerbach, 
who wrote at that time his Schwartzwald stories from the hfe 
of the peasants and edited popular almanacks, and Proudhon, 
who was then in exile at Brussels. Tolstoy returned to Russia 
at the moment when the serfs were freed, accepted the posi- 
tion of a mirovoy posrednik, or arbitrator of peace between 
the landlords and the freed serfs, and, settling at Yasnaya 
Polyana, began there his work of education of children. This 
he started on entirely independent lines, — that is, on purely 
anarchistic principles, totally free from the artificial methods 
of education which had been worked out by German pedagog- 
ists, and were then greatly admired in Russia. There was no 
sort of discipline in his school. Instead of working out pro- 
grammes according to which the children are to be taught, the 
teacher, Tolstoy said, must learn from the children them- 
selves what to teach them, and must adapt his teaching to the 
individual tastes and capacities of each child. Tolstoy carried 
this out with his pupils, and obtained excellent results. His 
methods, however, have as yet received but little attention; 
and only one great writer — another poet, William Morris, 
— has advocated (in News from Nowhere) the same free- 
dom in education. But we may be sure that some day Tol- 
stoy's Yasnaya Polyana papers, studied by some gifted 
teacher, as Rousseau's Emile was studied by Froebel, will 
become the starting point of an educational reform much 
deeper than the reforms of Pestalozzi and Froebel. 

It is now known that a violent end to this educational 
experiment was put by the Russian Government. During 
Tolstoy's absence from his estate a searching was made by 
the gendarmes, who not only frightened to death Tolstoy's 
old aunt (she fell ill after that) but visited every corner of 
the house and read aloud, with cynical comments, the most 
intimate diary which the great writer had kept since his 
youth. More searchings were promised, so that Tolstoy 



tolst(5y 12 1 

Intended to emigrate for ever to London, and warned Alexan- 
der II., through the Countess A. A. Tolstaya that he kept 
a loaded revolver by his side and would shoot down the first 
police officer who would dare to enter his house. The school 
had evidently to be closed. 



WAR AND PEACE 

In the year 1862 Tolstoy married the young daughter 
of a Moscow doctor, Bers; and, staying nearly without 
interruption on his Tula estate, he gave his time, for the 
next fifteen or sixteen years, to his great work. War and 
Peace, and next to Anna Karenina. His first intention was to 
WTite (probably untilising some family traditions and docu- 
ments) a great historical novel, The Decembrists (see Chap- 
ter I.), and he finished in 1863 the first chapters of this novel 
(Vol. III. of his Works, in Russian; Moscow, loth edition). 
But in trying to create the types of the Decembrists he must 
have been taken back in his thoughts to the great war of 
1812. He had heard so much about it in the family tradi- 
tions of the Tolstoys and Volkhonskys, and that war had so 
much in common with the Crimean war through which he 
himself had lived that he came to write this great epopee, 
War and Peace, which has no parallel in any literature. 

A whole epoch, from 1805 to 18 12, Is reconstituted In 
these volumes, and Its meaning appears — not from the con- 
ventional historian's point of view, but as It was understood 
then by those who lived and acted In those years. All the 
Society of those times passes before the reader, from Its 
highest spheres, with their heart-rending levity, conventional 
ways of thinking, and superficiality, down to the simplest 
soldier In the army, who bore the hardships of that terrible 
conflict as a sort of ordeal that was sent by a supreme power 
upon the Russians, and who forgot himself and his own suf- 
ferings In the life and sufferings of the nation. A fashionable 
drawing-room at St. Petersburg, the salon of a person who 
is admitted Into the Intimacy of the dowager-empress; the 
quarters of the Russian diplomatists in Austria and the 
Austrian Court; the thoughtless life of the Rostolf family at 
Moscow and on their estate; the austere house of the old 



122 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

general, Prince Bolkonskly; then the camp life of the Rus- 
sian General Staff and of Napoleon on the one hand, and on 
the other, the inner life of a simple regiment of the hussars 
or of a field-battery; then such world-battles as Schongraben, 
the disaster of Austerlitz, Smolensk, and Borodino; the 
abandonment and the burning of Moscow; the life of those 
Russian prisoners who had been arrested pell-mell during the 
conflagration and were executed in batches; and finally the 
horrors of the retreat of Napoleon from Moscow, and the 
guerilla warfare — all this immense variety of scenes, events, 
and small episodes, interwoven with romance of the deepest 
interest, is unrolled before us as we read the pages of this 
epopee of Russia's great conflict with Western Europe. 

We make acquaintance with more than a hundred differ- 
ent persons, and each of them is so well depicted, each has his 
or her own human physiognomy so well determined, that each 
one appears with his or her own individuality, distinct 
amongst the scores of actors in the same great drama. It is 
not so easy to forget even the least important of these figures, 
be it one of the ministers of Alexander I. or any one of the 
ordinances of the calvary oflSicers. Nay, every anonymous 
soldier of various rank — the infantryman, the hussar, or the 
artilleryman— has his own physiognomy; even the different 
chargers of Rostoff, or of Denisoff, stand out with individual 
features. When you think of the variety of human characters 
which pass under your eyes on these pages, you have the real 
sensation of a vast crowd — of historical events that you seem 
to have lived through — of a whole nation roused by a calam- 
ity; while the impression you retain of human beings whom 
you have loved in War and Peace, or for whom you have suf- 
fered when misfortune befell them, or when they themselves 
have wronged others (as for instance, the old countess Rostoff 
and Sonitchka) — the impression left by these persons, when 
they emerge in your memory from the crowd, gives to that 
crowd the same illusion of reality which little details give to 
the personality of a hero. 

The great difficulty in an historical novel lies not so much 
in the representation of secondary figures as in painting the 
great historical personalities — the chief actors of the histori- 
cal drama — so as to make of them real, living beings. But this 



TOLSTOY 123 

is exactly where Tolstoy has succeeded most wonderfully. His 
Bagration, his Alexander I., his Napoleon, and his Kutuzoff 
are living men, so realistically represented that one sees them 
and is tempted to seize the brush and paint them, or to 
imitate their movements and ways of talking. 

The " philosophy of war " which Tolstoy had devel- 
oped in War and Peace has provoked, as is well known, pas- 
sionate discussion and bitter criticism; and yet Its correctness 
cannot but be recognised. In fact, it is recognised by such as 
know war from within, or have witnessed human mass- 
actions. Of course, those who know war from newspaper 
reports, especially such officers as, after having recited many 
times over an " improved " report of a battle as they would 
have liked it to be, giving themselves a leading role — such 
men will not agree with Tolstoy's ways of dealing with 
*' heroes"; but it is sufficient to read, for Instance, what 
Moltke and Bismarck wrote in their private letters about the 
war of 1870-71, or the plain, honest descriptions of some his- 
torical event with which we occasionally meet, to understand 
Tolstoy's views of war and his conceptions of the extremely 
limited part played by " heroes " in historical events. Tolstoy 
did not invent the artillery officer Timokhin who had been 
forgotten by his superiors in the centre of the Schongraben 
position, and who, continuing all day long to use his four 
guns with Initiative and discernment, prevented the battle 
from ending in disaster for the Russian rearguard: he 
knew only too well of such Timokhins In Sebastopol. They 
compose the real vital force of every army In the world; and 
the success of an army depends Infinitely more upon its num- 
ber of Timokhins than upon the genius of Its high com- 
manders. This Is where Tolstoy and Moltke are of one 
mind, and where they entirely disagree with the " war- 
correspondent " and with the General Staff historians. 

In the hands of a writer possessed of less genius than 
Tolstoy, such a thesis might have failed to appear convincing; 
but in War and Peace it appears almost with the force of self- 
evidence. Tolstoy's Kutuzoff Is — as he was in reality — quite 
an ordinary man; but he was a great man for the precise rea- 
son, that, forseeing the unavoidable and almost fatal drift of 
events, Instead of pretending that he directed them, he simply 



124 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

did his best to utilise the vital forces of his army in order to 
avoid still greater disasters. 

It hardly need be said that War and Peace is a powerful 
indictment against war. The effect which the great writer has 
exercised in this direction upon his generation can be actually 
seen in Russia. It was already apparent during the great 
Turkish war of 1877-78, when it was absolutely impossible 
to find in Russia a correspondent who would have described 
how "w^ have peppered the enemy with grape-shot/' or how 
" we shot them down like nine-pins." If a man could have 
been found to use in his letters such survivals of savagery, no 
paper would have dared to print them. The general character 
of the Russian war-correspondent had grown totally different ; 
and during the same war there came to the front such a novel- 
ist as Garshin and such a painter as Vereschagin, with whom 
to combat war became a life work. 

Everyone who has read War and Peace remembers, of 
course, the hard experiences of Pierre, and his friendship 
with the soldier Karataeff. One feels that Tolstoy is full of 
admiration for the quiet philosophy of this man of the people, 
— a typical representative of the ordinary, common-sense Rus- 
sian peasant. Some literary critics concluded that Tolstoy was 
preaching in Karataeff a sort of Oriental fatalism. In the 
present writer's opinion there is nothing of the sort. Karataeff, 
who is a consistent pantheist, simply knows that there are 
natural calamities, which it is impossible to resist; and he 
knows that the miseries which befall him — his personal 
sufferings, and eventually the shooting of a number of 
prisoners among whom to-morrow he may or may not be 
included — are the unavoidable consequences of a much 
greater event: the armed conflict between nations, which, 
once it has begun, must unroll itself with all its revolting 
but absolutely ungovernable consequences. Karataeff acts as 
one of those cows on the slope of an Alpine mountain, mtn- 
tioned by the philosopher Guyau, which, when it feels that 
it begins to slip down a steep mountain slope, makes at first 
desperate efforts to hold its ground, but when it sees that 
no effort can arrest its fatal gliding, lets itself quietly 
be dragged down into the abyss. Karataeff accepts the 
Inevitable; but he is not a fatalist. If he had felt that 



TOLSTdY 125 

his efforts could prevent war, he would have exerted 
them. In fact, towards the end of the w^ork, when Pierre tells 
his wife Natasha that he is going to join the Decembrists (it 
Is told in veiled words, on account of censorship, but a 
Russian reader understands nevertheless), and she asks 
him: "Would Platon Karataeff approve of it?" Pierre, 
after a moment's reflection, answers decidedly, " Yes, he 
would." 

I don't know what a Frenchman, and Englishman, or a 
German feels when he reads War and Peace — I have heard 
educated Englishmen telling me that they found It dull — but 
I know that for educated Russians the reading of nearly 
every scene in War and Peace Is a source of Indescribable 
aesthetic pleasure. Having, like so many Russians, read the 
work many times, I could not, If I were asked, name the 
scenes which delight me most: the romances among the 
children, the mass-effects In the war scenes, the regimental 
life, the inimitable scenes from the life of the Court, aristoc- 
racy, the tiny details concerning Napoleon or Kutuzoff, or 
the life of the Rostoffs — the dinner, the hunt, the departure 
from Moscow, and so on. 

Many felt offended. In reading this epopee, to see their 
hero. Napoleon, reduced to such small proportions, and even 
ridiculed. But the Napoleon who came to Russia was no 
longer the man who had Inspired the armies of the sans- 
culottes In their first steps eastwards for the abolition of 
serfdom, absolutism, and Inquisition. All men in high posi- 
tions are actors to a great extent — as Tolstoy so wonderfully 
shows in so many places of his great work — and Napoleon 
surely was not the least actor among them. And by the time 
he came to Russia, an emperor, now spoiled by the adula- 
tion of the courtiers of all Europe and the worship of the 
masses, who attributed to him what was attributable to the 
vast stir of minds produced by the Great Revolution, and 
consequently saw In him a half-god — by the time he came 
to Russia, the actor In him had got the upper hand over the 
man In whom there had been formerly Incarnated the youth- 
ful energy of the suddenly-awakened French nation, in whom 
had appeared the expression of that awakening, and through 
whom its force had been the further increased. To these 



126 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

original characteristics was due the fascination which the 
name of Napoleon exercised upon his contemporaries. At 
Smolensky, Kutuzoff himself must have experienced that fas- 
cination when, rather than rouse the lion to a desperate battle, 
he opened before him the way to retreat. 



ANNA KARENINA, 

Of all the Tolstoy's novels, Anna Karenina is the one 
which has been the most widely read in all languages. As 
a work of art it is a master-piece. From the very first appear- 
ance of the heroine, you feel that this woman must bring 
with her a drama; from the very outset her tragical end Is 
as inevitable as it Is in a drama of Shakespeare. In that 
sense the novel is true to life throughout. It is a corner of 
real life that we have before us. As a rule, Tolstoy is not 
at his best In picturing women — with the exception of very 
young girls — and I don't think that Anna Karenina herself 
is as deep, as psychologically complete, and as living a crea- 
tion as she might have been ; but the more ordinary woman, 
Dolly, is simply teeming with life. As to the various scenes 
of the novel — the ball scenes, the races of the officers, the 
inner family life of Dolly, the country scenes on Levin's 
estate, the death of his brother, and so on — all these are 
depicted in such a way that for Its artistic qualities Anna 
Karenina stands foremost even amongst the many beautiful 
things Tolstoy has written. 

And yet, notwithstanding all that, the novel produced in 
Russia a decidedly unfavourable Impression, which brought 
to Tolstoy congratulations from the reactionary camp and 
a very cool reception from the advanced portion of society. 
The fact is, that the question of marriage and of an eventual 
separation between husband and wife had been most earnestly 
debated In Russia by the best men and women, both in litera- 
ture and in life. It is self-evident that such indifferent levity 
towards marriage as is continually unveiled before the Courts 
In " Society " divorce cases was absolutely and uncondition- 
ally condemned; and that any form of deceit, such as makes 
the subject of countless French novels and dramas, was ruled 
out of question in any honest discussion of the matter. But 



TOLSTdY 127 

after the above levity and deceit had been severely branded, 
the rights of a new love, serious and deep, appearing after 
years of happy married life, had only been the more seri- 
ously analysed. Tchernyshevsky's novel. What is^ to be done, 
can be taken as the best expression of the opinions upon 
marriage which had become current amongst the better 
portion of the young generation. Once you are married, 
it was said, don't take lightly to love affairs, or so-called 
flirtation. Every fit of passion does not deserve the name 
of a new love; and what is sometimes described as love is 
in a very great number of cases nothing but temporary 
desire. Even If it were real love, before a real and deep 
love has grown up, there is in most cases a period when 
one has time to reflect upon the consequences that would 
follow if the beginnings of his or her new sympathy should 
attain the depth of such a love. But, with all that, there 
are cases when a new love does come, and there are cases 
when such an event must happen almost fatally, when, for 
instance, a girl has been married almost against her will, 
under the continued insistence of her lover, or when the 
two have married without properly understanding each other, 
or when one of the two has continued to progress in his or 
her development towards a higher ideal, while the other, 
after having worn for some time the mask of idealism, falls 
into the Philistine happiness of warmed slippers. In such 
cases separation not only becomes inevitable, but it often is to 
the interest of both. It would be much better for both to live 
through the sufferings which a separation would involve 
(honest natures are by such sufferings made better) than to 
spoil the entire subsequent existence of the one — in most 
cases, of both — and to face moreover the fatal results that 
living together under such circumstances would necessarily 
mean for the children. This was, at least, the conclusion to 
which both Russian literature and the best all-round portion 
of our society had come. 

And now came Tolstoy with Anna Karenina, which bears 
the menacing biblical epigraph : " Vengeance Is mine, and I 
will repay It," and In which the biblical revenge falls upon 
the unfortunate Karenina, who puts an end by suicide to her 
sufferings after her separation from her husband. Russian 



128 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

critics evidently could not accept Tolstoy's views. The case 
of Karenlna was one of those where there could be no ques- 
tion of " vengeance." She was married as a young girl to an 
old and unattractive man. At that time she did not know 
exactly what she was doing, and nobody had explained It to 
her. She had never known love, and learned It for the first 
time when she saw Vronskly. Deceit, for her, was absolutely 
out of the question; and to keep up a merely conventional 
marriage would have been a sacrifice which would not have 
made her husband and child any happier. Separation, and a 
new life with Vronskly, who seriously loved her, was the only 
possible outcome. At any rate, If the story of Anna Karenlna 
had to end In tragedy. It was not In the least In consequence 
of an act of supreme justice. As always, the honest artistic 
genius of Tolstoy had Itself Indicated another cause — the 
real one. It was the Inconsistency of Vronskly and Karenlna. 
After having separated from her husband and defied ^' public 
opinion " — that Is, the opinion of women who, as Tolstoy 
shows It himself, were not honest enough to be allowed any 
voice In the matter — neither she nor Vronskly had the cour- 
age of breaking entirely with that society, the futility of 
which Tolstoy knows and describes so exquisitely. Instead of 
that, when Anna returned with Vronskly to St. Petersburg, 
her own and Vronskiy's chief preoccupation was — How 
Betsey and other such women would receive her, if she made 
her appearance among them. And It was the opinion of the 
Betsies — surely not Superhuman Justice — which brought 
Karenlna to suicide. 

RELIGIOUS CRISIS 

Everyone knows the profound change which took place 
In Tolstoy's fundamental conceptions of life In the years 
1 875-1 878, when he had reached the age of about fifty. I do 
not think that one has the right to discuss publicly what has 
been going on In the very depths of another's mind; but, by 
telling us himself the Inner drama and the struggles which 
he has lived through, the great writer has, so to say. Invited 
us to verify whether he was correct in his reasonings and 
conclusions; and limiting ourselves to the psychological 



tolst6y 129 

material which he has given us, we may discuss It without 
undue Intrusion Into the motives of his actions. 

It Is most striking to find, on re-reading the earlier works 
of Tolstoy, how the Ideas which he advocates at the present 
time were always cropping up In his earlier writings. 
Philosophical questions and questions concerning the moral 
foundations of life Interested him from his early youth. At 
the age of sixteen he used to read philosophical works, and 
during his university years, and even through " the stormy 
days of passion," questions as to how we ought to live rose 
with their full importance before him. His autobiographical 
novels, especially Youth, bear deep traces of that inner work 
of his mind, even though, as he says In Confession, he has 
never said all he might have said on this subject. Nay, It Is 
evident that although he describes his frame of mind In those 
years as that of " a philosophical Nihilist," he had never 
parted. In reality, with the beliefs of his childhood.* He 
always was an admirer and follower of Rousseau. In his 
papers on education (collected in Vol. IV. of the tenth 
Moscow edition of his Works) one finds treated In a very 
radical way most of the burning social questions which he 
has discussed In his later years. These questions even then 
worried him so much that, while he was carrying on his school 
work in Yasnaya Polyana and was a Peace Mediator — that 
is, in the years 1861-62 — he grew so disgusted with the 
unavoidable dualism of his position of a benevolent landlord, 
that — to quote his own words — " I should have come then, 
perhaps, to the crisis which I reached fifteen years later, if 
there had not remained one aspect of life which promised me 
salvation — namely, married life." In other words, Tolstoy 
was already very near to breaking with the privileged class 
point of view on Property and Labour, and to joining the 
great popullstic movement which was already beginning in 
Russia. This he probably would have done, had not a new 
world of love, family life, and family interests, which he 

* Introduction to the Criticism of Dogmatic Theology and to 
an Analysis of the Christian Teaching, or Confession; Vol. I of 
TchertkofE's edition of Works prohibited by the Russian Censorship 
(in Russian), Christchurch, 1902, p. 13. 



I30 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

embraced with the usual intensity of his passionate nature, 
fastened the ties that kept him attached to his own class. 

Art, too, must have contributed to divert his attention from 
the social problem — at least, from Its economic aspects. In 
War and Peace he developed the philosophy of the masses 
versus the heroes^ a philosophy which In those years would 
have found among the educated men of all Europe very 
few persons ready to accept It. Was It his poetical genius 
which revealed to him the part played by the masses In the 
great war of 1812, and taught him that they — the masses, 
and not the heroes — had accomplished all the great things In 
history? Or, was It but a further development of the Ideas 
which Inspired him In his Yasnaya Polyana school, In opposi- 
tion to all the educational theories that had been elaborated 
by Church and State In the Interest of the privileged classes? 
At any rate. War and Peace must have offered him a problem 
great enough to absorb his thoughts for a number of years ; 
and In writing this monumental work. In which he strove to 
promote a new conception of history, he must have felt that 
he was working In the right way. As to Anna Karenina^ which 
had no such reformatory or philosophical purpose, it must 
have offered to Tolstoy the possibility of living through once 
more, with all the Intensity of poetical creation, the shallow 
life of the leisured classes, and to contrast It with the life of 
the peasants and their work. And it was while he was finishing 
this novel that he began to fully realise how much his own 
life was In opposition to the ideals of his earlier years. 

A terrible conflict must have been going on then in the 
mind of the great writer. The communistic feeling which had 
Induced him to put In Italics the fact about the singer at 
Lucerne, and to add to it a hot Indictment against the civilisa- 
tion of the moneyed classes ; the trend of thought which had 
dictated his severe criticisms against private property in 
Holstomyer: the History of a Horse; the anarchistic ideas 
which had brought him, In his Yasnaya Polyana educational 
articles, to a negation of a civilisation based on Capitalism 
and State; and, on the other hand, his Individual property 
conceptions, which he tried to conciliate with his communistic 
leanings (see the conversation between the two brothers 
Levin in Anna Karenina) ; his want of sympathy with the 



tolst6y 131 

parties which stood In opposition to the Russian Government 
and, at the same time, his profound, deeply rooted dislike of 
that Government, all these tendencies must have been in an 
irreconcilable conflict In the mind the great writer, with all 
the passionate Intensity which Is characteristic of Tolstoy, as 
with all men of genius. These constant contradictions were so 
apparent that while less perspicacious Russian critics and the 
Moscow Gazette defenders of serfdom considered Tolstoy 
as having joined their reactionary camp, a gifted Russian 
critic, Mlhallovskly, published In 1875 ^ series of remark- 
able articles, entitled The Right Hand and the Left Hand of 
Count Tolstoy, in which he pointed out the two men who 
constantly were in conflict In the great writer. In these articles, 
the young critic, a great admirer of Tolstoy, analysed the 
advanced Ideas which he had developed In his educational 
articles, which were almost quite unknown at that time, and 
contrasted them with the strangely conservative Ideas which 
he had expressed in his later writings. As a consequence, 
Mlhallovskly predicted a crisis to which the great writer 
was inevitably coming. 



" I will not speak," he wrote, " of Anna Karenina, first of all 
because it is not yet terminated, and second, because one must speak 
of it very much, or not at all. I shall only remark that in this novel — 
much more superficially, but for that very reason perhaps even more 
distinctly than anywhere else — one sees the traces of the drama which 
is going on in the soul of the author. One asks oneself what such a 
man is to do, how can he live, how shall he avoid that poisoning 
of his consciousness which at every step intrudes into the pleasures 
of a satisfied need? Most certainly he must, even though it may be 
instinctively, seek for a means to put an end to the inner drama 
of his soul, to drop the curtain; but how to do it? I think that if 
an ordinary man were in such a position, he would have ended in 
suicide or in drunkenness. A man of value will, on the contrary, 
seek for other issues, and of such issues there are several." {Ote- 
chestvennyia Zapiski, a review, June, 1875; also Mihailovskiy's 
Works, Vol. Ill, p. 491.) 



One of these issues — Mlhallovskly continued — would be 
to write for the people. Of course, very few are so happy as 



132 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

to possess the talent and the faculties which are necessary 
for that: 

" But once he (Tolstoy) is persuaded that the nation consists of 
two halves, and that even the * innocent ' pleasures of the one half 
are to the disadvantage of the other half — why should he not devote 
his formidable forces to this immense task? It is even difficult to 
imagine that any other theme could interest the writer who carries 
in his soul such a terrible drama as the one that Count Tolstoy carries. 
So deep and so serious is it, so deeply does It go to the root of all 
literary activity, that it must presumably destroy all other Interests, 
just as the creeper suffocates all other plants. And, is it not a suffi- 
ciently high aim in life, always to remind * Society ' that its pleasures 
and amusements are not the pleasures and the amusements of all 
mankind, to explain to ' Society ' the true sense of the phenomena of 
progress, to wake up, be it only in the few, the more impressionable, 
the conscience and the feeling of justice? And is not this field wide 
enough for poetical creation ? . . . 

" The drama which is going on in Count Tolstoy's soul is my 
hypothesis," Mihailovskiy concluded, " but it is a legitimate hypo- 
thesis without which it is impossible to understand his writings." 
{Works. Ill, 496.) 

It IS now known how much Mihallovskiy's hypothesis was 
a prevision. In the years 1875-76, as Tolstoy was finishing 
Anna Karenina, he began fully to realise the shallowness and 
the duality of the life that he had hitherto led. " Something 
strange," he says, " began to happen within me: I began to 
experience minutes of bewilderment, of arrest of life, as If I 
did not know how to live and what to do." "What for? 
What next? " were the questions which began to rise before 
him. "Well," he said to himself, "you will have 15,000 
acres of land in Samara, 3000 horses — but what of that? 
And I was bewildered, and did not know what to think next." 
Literary fame had lost for him Its attraction, now that he 
had reached the great heights to which War and Peace had 
brought him. The little picture of Philistine famlly-happlness 
which he had pictured In a novel before his marriage {Family 
Happiness) he had now lived through, but it no longer 
satisfied him. The life of Epicureanism which he had led 
hitherto had lost all sense for him. " I felt," he writes 
in Confession, " that what I had stood upon had broken 



tolst6y 133 

down; that there was nothing for me to stand upon; that 
what I had lived by was no more, and that there was nothing 
left me to live by. My life had come to a stop." The so-called 
" family duties " had lost their interest. When he thought 
of the education of his children, he asked himself, " What 
for? " and very probably he felt that in his landlord's sur- 
roundings he never would be able to give them a better 
education than his own, which he condemned; and when he 
began thinking of the well-being of the masses he would all 
of a sudden ask himself: "What business have I to think 
of it?" 

He felt that he had nothing to live for. He even had no 
wishes which he could recognise as reasonable. " If a fairy 
had come to me, and offered to satisfy my wish, I should not 
have known what to wish ... I even could not wish to 
know Truth, because I had guessed of what it would consist. 
The Truth was, that life is nonsense." He had no aim In 
life, no purpose, and he realised that without a purpose, and 
with Its unavoidable sufferings, life is not worth living {Con- 
fession, Vl, VU) . 

He had not — to use his own expression — " the moral 
bluntness of Imagination " which would be required not to 
have his Epicureanism poisoned by the surrounding misery; 
and yet, like Schopenhauer, he had not the Will that was 
necessary for adjusting his actions In accordance with the 
dictates of his reason. Self-annihilation, death, appeared 
therefore as a welcome solution. 

However, Tolstoy was too strong a man to end his life in 
suicide. He found an outcome, and that outcome was in- 
dicated to him by a return to the love which he had cherished 
in his youth: the love of the peasant masses. " Was it in con- 
sequence of a strange, so to say a physical love of the truly 
working people," he writes — or of some other cause? but 
he understood at last that he must seek the sense of life 
among the millions who toil all their life long. He began to 
examine with more attention than before the life of these 
millions. " And I began," he says, " to love these people." 
And the more he penetrated into their lives, past and present, 
the more he loved them, and " the easier It was for me to 
live." As to the life of the men of his own circle — the wealthy 



134 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

and cultured, " I not only felt disgust for it: it lost all sense 
in my eyes." He understood that if he did not see what life 
was worth living for, it was his own life " in exclusive condi- 
tions of epicureanism " which had obscured the truth. 

" I understood," he continues, " that my question, * What is life? * 
and my reply to It, * Evil,' were quite correct. I was only wrong 
in applying them to life altogether. To the question, * What Is life? ' I 
had got the reply, * Evil and nonsense ! ' And so It was. My own 
life — a life of Indulgence In passions — was void of sense and full of 
evil, but this was true of my life only, not of the life of all men. 
Beginning with the birds and the lowest animals, all live to maintain 
life and to secure It for others besides themselves, while I not only did 
not secure It for others: I did not secure it even for myself. I lived 
as a parasite, and, having put to myself the question, * What do I 
live for? ' I got the reply, * For no purpose.' " 

The conviction, then, that he must live as the millions live, 
earning his own livelihood; that he must toil as the millions 
toil; and that such a life is the only possible reply to the ques- 
tions which had brought him to despair — the only way to 
escape the terrible contradictions which had made Schopen- 
hauer preach self-annihilation, and Solomon, Sakiamuni, and 
so many others preach their gospel of despairing pessimism, 
this conviction, then, saved him and restored to him lost 
energy and the will to live. But that same Idea had Inspired 
thousands of the Russian youth, in those same years, and had 
induced them to start the great movement " V narod! '' 
" Towards the people; be the people! " 

Tolstoy has told us in an admirable book. What is, then, to 
he done? the impressions which the slums of Moscow pro- 
duced upon him in 1881, and the influence they had upon the 
ulterior development of his thoughts. But we do not yet know 
what facts and impressions made him so vividly realise in 
1875-81 the emptiness of the life which he had been hitherto 
leading. Is it then presuming too much if I suggest that it 
was this very same movement, *' towards the people," which 
had inspired so many of the Russian youth to go to the 
villages and the factories, and to live there the life of the 
people, which finally brought Tolstoy, also, to reconsider his 
position as a rich landlord ? 



TOLSTOY 135 

That he knew of this movement there Is not the slightest 
doubt. The trial of the Netchaeff groups in 1871 was printed 
in full in the Russian newspapers, and one could easily read 
through all the youthful immaturity of the speeches of the 
accused the high motives and the love of the people which 
inspired them. The trial of the Dolgushin groups, in 1875, 
produced a still deeper impression in the same direction; but 
especially the trial, in March, 1877, ^^ those of transcendent 
worth, girls Bardina, Lubatovitch, the sisters Subbotin, *' the 
Moscow Fifty " as they were named in the circles, who, all 
from wealthy families, had led the life of factory girls, in the 
horrible factory-barracks, working fourteen and sixteen hours 
a day, in order to be with the working people and to teach 
them. . . . And then — the trial of the " Hundred-and- 
Ninety-Three " and of Vera Zasulitch in 1878. However 
great Tolstoy's dislike of revolutionists might have been, he 
must have felt, as he read the reports of these trials, or heard 
what was said about them at Moscow and in his province of 
Tula, and witnessed round him the Impression they had 
produced — he, the great artist, must have felt that this youth 
was much nearer to what he himself was In his earlier days, 
in 1861-62, than to those among whom he lived now — the 
Katkoffs, the " Fets," and the like. And then, even if he 
knew nothing about these trials and had heard nothing 
about the " Moscow Fifty," he knew, at least, Turgue- 
neff's Virgin Soil, which was published In January, 1877, 
and he must have felt, even from that Imperfect picture, 
so warmly greeted by young Russia, what this young Russia 
was. 

If Tolstoy had been In his twenties, he might possibly have 
joined the movement, In one form or another, nothwlthstand- 
Ing all the obstacles. Such as he was. In his surroundings, and 
especially with his mind already preoccupied by the prob- 
lem — " Where is the lever which would move human hearts 
at large, and become the source of the deep moral reform of 
every Individual? " with such a question on his mind, he had 
to live through many a struggle before he was brought con- 
sciously to take the very same step. For our young men and 
women, the mere statement that one who had got an educa- 
tion, thanks to the work of the masses, owed It therefore to 



136 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

these masses to work In return for them — this simple 
statement was sufficient. They left their wealthy houses, took 
to the simplest life, hardly different from that of a working- 
man, and devoted their lives to the people. But for many 
reasons — such as education, habits, surroundings, age, and, 
perhaps, the great philosophical question he had In his 
mind, Tolstoy had to live through the most painful struggles, 
before he came to the very same conclusion, but in a different 
way : that Is to say, before he concluded that he, as the bearer 
of a portion of the divine Unknown, had to fulfil the will 
of that Unknown, which will was that everyone should work 
for the universal welfare.* 

The moment, however, that he came to this conclusion, he 
did not hesitate to act In accordance with it. The difficulties 
he met in his way, before he could follow the Injunction of 
his conscience, must have been Immense. We can faintly guess 
them. The sophisms he had to combat — especially when all 
those who understood the value of his colossal talent began 
to protest against his condemnation of his previous writing — 
we can also easily imagine. And one can but admire the force 
of his convictions, when he entirely reformed the life he had 
hitherto led. 

The small room he took in his rich mansion is well known 
through a world-renowned photograph. Tolstoy behind the 
plough, painted by Ryepin, has gone the round of the world, 
and is considered by the Russian Government so dangerous 
an Image that it has been taken from the public gallery where 
It was exhibited. Limiting his own living to the strictly 
necessary minimum of the plainest sort of food, he did his 

* " That which some people told me, and of which I sometimes 
had tried to persuade myself — namely, that a man should desire 
happiness, not for himself only, but for others, his neighbours, and 
for all men as well: this did not satisfy me. Firstly, I could not sin- 
cerely desire happiness for others as much as for myself; secondly, 
and chiefly, others, in like manner as myself, were doomed to un- 
happiness and death, and therefore all my efforts for other peo- 
ple's happiness were useless. I despaired." The understanding that 
personal happiness is best found in the happiness of all did not appeal 
to him, and the very striving towards the happiness of all, and an 
advance towards it, he thus found insufficient as a purpose in life. 



TOLSTdY 137 

best, so long as his physical forces lasted, to earn that little 
by physical work. And for the last years of his life he has 
been writing even more than he ever did in the years of his 
greatest literary productivity. 

The effects of this example which Tolstoy has given man- 
kind everyone knows. He believes, however, that he must 
give also the philosophical and religious reasons for his 
conduct, and this he did in a series of remarkable works. 

Guided by the idea that millions of plain working people 
realised the sense of life, and found it in life itself, which 
they considered as the accomplishment of " the will of the 
Creator of the universe," he accepted the simple creed of the 
masses of the Russian peasants, even though his mind was 
reluctant to do so, and followed with them the rites of the 
Greek Orthodox Church. There was a limit, however, to such 
a concession, and there were beliefs which he positively could 
not accept. He felt that when he was, for instance, solemnly 
declaring during the mass, before communion, that he took 
the latter in the literal sense of the words — not figuratively — 
he was affirming something which he could not say in full 
conscience. Besides, he soon made the acquaintance of the 
Non-conformist peasants, Sutyaeff and Bondaryoff, whom he 
deeply respected, and he saw, from his intercourse with them, 
that by joining the Greek Orthodox Church he was lending 
a hand to all its abominable prosecutions of the Non-conform- 
ists — that he was a party to the hatred which all Churches 
profess towards each other. 

Consequently, he undertook a complete study of Chris- 
tianity, irrespective of the teachings of the different churches, 
including a careful revision of the translations of the gospels, 
with the intention of finding out what was the real meaning 
of the Great Teacher's precepts, and what had been added to 
it by his followers. In a remarkable, most elaborate work 
(Criticism of Dogmatic Theology), he demonstrated how 
fundamentally the interpretations of the Churches differed 
from what was in his opinion the true sense of the words of 
the Christ. And then he worked out, quite independently, an 
interpretation of the Christian teaching which is quite similar 
to the interpretations that have been given to it by all the 
great popular movements — in the ninth century in Armenia, 



138 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

— later on by Wycllff, and by the early Anabaptists, such as 
Hans Denck,* laying, however, like the Quakers, especial 
stress on the doctrine of non-resistance. 

HIS INTERPRETATION OF THE CHRISTIAN TEACHING 

The ideas which Tolstoy thus slowly worked out are 
explained in a succession of three separate works : ( i ) Dog- 
matic Theology^ of which the Introduction Is better known as 
Confession and was written In 1882; (2) What is my Faith? 
(1884); and (3) What is then to he Done? (1886), to 
which must be added The Kingdom of God in Yourselves, or 
Christianity, not as a mystic Teaching hut as a new Under- 
standing of Life (1900) and, above all, a small book. The 
Christian Teaching (1902), which is written in short, con- 
cise, numbered paragraphs, like a catechism, and contains a 
full and definite exposition of Tolstoy's views. A number of 
other works dealing with the same subject — such as The Life 
and the Teachings of the Christ, My Reply to the Synod^s 
Edict of Excommunication, What is Religion, On Life, etc., 
were published during the same year. These books represent 
the work of Tolstoy for the last twenty years, and at least 
four of them {Confession, My Faith, What is to be Done, 
and Christian Teaching) must be read in the indicated suc- 
cession by everyone who wishes to know the religious and 
moral conceptions of Tolstoy and to extricate himself from 
the confused Ideas which are sometimes represented as Tol- 
stoyism. As to the short work. The Life and the Teaching of 
Jesus, it is, so to speak, the four gospels in one, told in a 
language easy to be understood, and free of all mystical and 
metaphorical elements; it contains Tolstoy's reading of the 
gospels. 

These works represent the most remarkable attempt at a 
rationalistic interpretation of Christianity that has ever been 
ventured upon. Christianity appears in them devoid of all 
gnosticism and mysticism, as a purely spiritual teaching about 
the universal spirit which guides man to a higher life — a life 
of equality and of friendly relations with all men. If Tolstoy 

* See Anabaptism from its Rise at Zwickau to its Fall at Miin- 
ster, 1521-1536, by Richard Heath {Baptist Manuals, I, 1895). 



tolst6y 139 

accepts Christianity as the foundation of his faith, it Is not 
because he considers it as a revelation, but because its teach- 
ing, purified of all the additions that have been made to it 
by the churches, contains *' the very same solution of the 
problem of life as has been given more or less explicitly by 
the best of men, both before and since the gospel v/as given to 
us — a succession which goes on from Moses, Isaiah, and 
Confucius, to the early Greeks, Buddha, and Socrates, down 
to Pascal, Spinoza, Fichte, Feuerbach, and all others, often 
unnoticed and unknown, who, taking no teachings on mere 
trust, have taught us, and spoken to us with sincerity, about 
the meaning of life"*; because It gives "an explanation 
of the meaning of life '* and *' a solution of this contradic- 
tion between the aspiration after welfare and life, and the 
consciousness of their being unattainable " {Chr. Teach. 
§13) — "between the desire for happiness and life on the 
one hand, and the Increasingly clear perception of the cer- 
tainty of calamity and death on the other " (ibid., §10). 

As to the dogmatic and mystical elements of Christianity, 
which he treats as mere additions to the real teaching of 
Christ, he considers them so noxious that even he makes the 
following remark: " It Is terrible to say so (but sometimes I 
have this thought) : If the teaching of Christ, together with 
the teaching of the Church that has grown upon It, did not 
exist at all — those who now call themselves Christians would 
have been nearer to the teachings of Christ — that Is, to an 
intelligent teaching about the good of life — than they are 
now. The moral teachings of all the prophets of mankind 
would not have been closed for them." t 

* The Christian Teaching, Introduction, p. vi. In another similar 
passage he adds Marcus Aurelius and Lao-tse to the above-men- 
tioned teachers. 

t fVhat is my Belief j ch. X, p. 145 of Tchertkoff's edition of 
Works prohibited by Russian Censorship. On pp. 18 and 19 of the 
little work, What is Religion and What is its Substance. Tolstoy 
expresses himself even more severely about " Church Christianity." 
He also gives us in this remarkable little work his Ideas about the 
substance of religion altogether, from which one can deduct its 
desirable relations to science, to synthetic philosophy, and to philo- 
sophical ethics. 



I40 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Putting aside all the mystical and metaphysical conceptions 
which have been Interwoven with Christianity, he concentrates 
his main attention upon the moral aspects of the Christian 
teaching. One of the most powerful means — he says — by 
which men are prevented from living a life In accordance 
with this teaching Is " religious deception." " Humanity 
moves slowly but unceasingly onward, towards an ever higher 
development of consciousness of the true meaning of life, and 
towards the organisation of life In conformity with this 
development of consciousness; " but In this ascendant march 
all men do not move at an equal pace, and " the less sensitive 
continue to adhere to the previous understanding and order 
of life, and try to uphold It." This they achieve mainly by 
means of the religious deception which consists " In the Inten- 
tional confusion of faith with superstition, and the substitu- 
tion of the one for the other." (Chr. Teach., §§i8i, i8o.) 
The only means to free one's self from this deception Is — he 
says — " to understand and to remember that the only Instru- 
ment which man possesses for the acquisition of knowledge 
Is reason, and that therefore every teaching which affirms 
that which Is contrary to reason is a delusion." Altogether, 
Tolstoy is especially emphatic upon this point of the impor- 
tance of reason. (See The Christian Teaching, §§ 206, 214.) 

Another great obstacle to the spreading of the Christian 
teaching he sees In the current belief in the immortality of 
the soul — such as It is understood now. {My Belief, p. 134 
of Tchertkoff's Russ. ed.) In this form he repudiates It; but 
we can — he says — give a deeper meaning to our life by mak- 
ing it to be a service to men — to mankind— by merging our 
life into the life of the universe ; and although this idea may 
seem less attractive than the idea of individual immortality, 
^' though little, it is sure." (Chr, Teaching.) 

In speaking of God he takes sometimes a pantheistic posi- 
tion, and describes God as Life, or as Love, or else as the 
Ideal which man is conscious of in himself ( Thoughts about 
God, collected by V. and A. Tchertkoff ) ; but in his last work 
(Christian Teaching, ch. VII. and VIII.) he prefers to iden- 
tify God with " the universal desire for welfare which is the 
source of all life." " So that, according to the Christian teach- 
ing, God is that Essence of life which man recognises both 



tolst(5y 141 

within himself and In the whole universe as the desire for wel- 
fare; It being at the same time the cause by which this Essence 
is enclosed and conditioned In Individual and corporal life " 
(§36). Every reasoning man — Tolstoy adds — comes to a 
simillar conclusion. A desire for universal welfare appears In 
every reasoning man, after his rational consciousness has been 
awakened at a certain age; and In the world around Man 
the same desire Is manifest In all separate beings, each of 
whom strives for his own welfare (§37). These two desires 
*' converge towards one distinct purpose — definite, attainable, 
and joyful for man." Consequently, he concludes. Observa- 
tion, Tradition (religious), and Reason, all three, show him 
" that the greatest welfare of man, towards which all men 
aspire, can only be obtained by perfect union and concord 
among men." All three show that the Immediate work of the 
world's development, in which he Is called upon to take part, 
is ** the substitution of union and harmony for division and 
discord." '* The inner tendency of that spiritual being — love 
— which is in the process of birth within him, Impels him in 
the same direction." 

Union and harmony, and steady, relentless effort to pro- 
mote them, which means not only all the work required for 
supporting one's life, but work also for increasing universal 
welfare — these are, then, the two final accords in which all 
the discords, all the storms, which for more than twenty years 
had raged in the distraught mind of the great artist, all the 
religious ecstasies and the rationalistic doubts which had 
agitated his superior intelligence in its insistent search for 
truth finally found their solution. On the highest metaphysi- 
cal heights the striving of every living being for its own wel- 
fare, which is Egoism and Love at the same time because it is 
Self-Love, and rational Self-Love must embrace all congeners 
of the same species — this striving for Individual welfare by 
Its very nature tends to comprise all that exists. " It expands 
its limits naturally by love, first for one's family — one's wife 
and children — then for friends, then for one's fellow-country- 
men ; but Love Is not satisfied with this, and tends to embrace 
all" {ibid., 1^6), 



142 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

MAIN POINTS OF THE CHRISTIAN ETHICS 

The central point of the Christian teaching Tolstoy sees 
in non-resistance. During the first years after his crisis he 
preached absolute '* non-resistance to evil " — in full con- 
formity with the verbal and definite sense of the words of the 
gospel, which words, taken in connection with the sentence 
about the right and the left cheek, evidently mean complete 
humility and resignation. However, he must have soon 
realised that such a teaching not only was not in conformity 
with his above-mentioned conception of God, but that it also 
amounted simply to abetting evil. It contains precisely that 
license to evil which always has been preached by the State 
religions in the interest of the ruling classes, and Tolstoy 
must have realised this. He tells us how he once met In a 
train the Governor of the Tula province at the head of a 
detachment of soldiers who were armed with rifles and pro- 
vided with a cart-load of birch-rods. They were going to 
flog the peasants of a village In order to enforce an act of 
sheer robbery passed by the Administration In favour of the 
landlord and In open breach of the law. He describes with 
his well-known graphical powers how, In their presence, a 
" Liberal lady " openly, loudly and In strong terms con- 
demned the Governor and the officers, and how they were 
ashamed. Then he describes how, when such an expedition 
began Its work, the peasants, with truly Christian resignation, 
would cross themselves with trembling hand and lie down on 
the ground, to be martyrised and flogged till the heart of the 
victim stopped beating, without the officers having been 
touched In the least by that Christian humility. What Tol- 
stoy did when he met the expedition, we don't know : he does 
not tell us. He probably remonstrated with the chiefs and 
advised the soldiers not to obey them — that Is, to revolt. At 
any rate, he must have felt that a passive attitude In the face 
of this evil — the non-resistance to It — would have meant a 
tacit approval of the evil; it would have meant giving support 
to It. Moreover, a passive attitude of resignation in the face 
of evil Is so contrary to the very nature of Tolstoy, that he 
could not remain for a long time a follower of such a doctrine, 
and he soon altered his interpretation of the text of the gospel 



tolst(5y 143 

in the sense of: " Don't resist evil by violence." All his later 
writings have consequently been a passionate resistance 
against the different forms of evil which he has seen round 
about himself In the world. Continually he makes his mighty 
voice resound against both evil and evil-doers; he only 
objects to physical force in resisting evil because he believes 
that works harm. 

The other four points of the Christian teaching, always 
according to Tolstoy's Interpretation of it, are: Do not be 
angry, or, at least, abstain from anger as much as you can: 
Remain true to the one woman with whom you have 
united your life, and avoid all that excites passion: Do not 
take oaths, which In Tolstoy's opinion means : Never tie your 
hands with an oath; oath-taking is the means resorted to by 
all governments to bind men in their consciences to do what- 
ever they bid them do; and finally, Love your enemies; or, as 
Tolstoy points It out In several of his writings : Never judge, 
and never prosecute another before a tribunal. 

To these five rules Tolstoy gives the widest possible inter- 
pretation and he deducts from them all the teachings of free 
communism. He proves with a wealth of arguments that to 
live upon the work of others, and not to earn one's own living, 
is to break the very law of all nature; It Is the main cause of 
all social evils, as also of nearly all personal unhappiness 
and discomforts. He shows how the present capitalistic 
organisation of labour is as bad as slavery or serfdom has 
ever been. 

He insists upon the simplification of life — in food, dress, 
and dwelling — which results from one*s taking to manual 
work, especially on the land, and shows the advantages 
that even the rich and idle of to-day would find In such 
labour. He shows how all the evils of present misgovernment 
result from the fact that the very men who protest against 
bad government make every effort to become a part of that 
government. 

As emphatically as he protests against the Church, he 
protests against the State, as the only real means for bringing 
to an end the present slavery Imposed upon men by this 
institution. He advises men to refuse having anything to do 
with the State. And finally, he proves with a wealth of illus- 



144 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

tratlons In which his artistic powers appear in full, that the 
lust of the rich classes for wealth and luxury — a lust which 
has no limits, and can have none — is what maintains all this 
slavery, all these abnormal conditions of life, and all the 
prejudices and teachings now disseminated by Church and 
State in the interest of the ruling classes. 

On the other hand, whenever he speaks of God, or of 
immortality, his constant desire is to show that he needs none 
of the mystical conceptions and metaphysical words which are 
usually resorted to. And while his language Is borrowed from 
religious writings, he always brings forward, again and again, 
the rationalistic Interpretation of religious conceptions. He 
carefully sifts from the Christian teaching all that cannot be 
accepted by followers of other religions, and brings into relief 
all that Is common to Christianity as well as to other positive 
religions ; all that Is simply humane In them and thus might be 
approved by reason, and therefore be accepted by dis- 
believers as well as by believers. 

In other words. In proportion as he has lately studied the 
teachings of different founders of religions and those of 
moral philosophers, he has tried to determine and to state 
the elements of a universal religion In which all men could 
unite — a religion, however, which would have nothing super- 
natural In It, nothing that reason and knowledge would have 
to reject, but would contain a moral guidance for all men — at 
whatever stage of Intellectual development they may halt. 
Having thus begun, in 1875-77, by joining the Greek Ortho- 
dox religion — In the sense in which Russian peasants under- 
stand It — he came finally In The Christian Teaching to the 
construction of a Moral Philosophy which, in his opinion, 
might be accepted by the Christian, the Jew, the Mussulman, 
the Buddhist, and so on, and the naturalist philosopher as 
well — a religion which would retain the only substantial ele- 
ments of all religions: namely, a determination of one's rela- 
tion towards the universe {Weltanschaung) , In accordance 
with present knowledge, and a recognition of the equality of 
all men. 

Whether these two elements, one of which belongs to the 
domain of knowledge and science and the other (justice) to 
the domain of ethics, are sufficient to constitute a religion, 



tolst6y 145 

and need no substratum of mysticism — Is a question which 
lies beyond the scope of this book. 



LATEST WORKS OF ART 

The disturbed conditions of the civilised world, and 
especially of Russia, have evidently more than once attracted 
the attention of Tolstoy, and Induced him to publish a con- 
siderable number of letters, papers, and appeals on various 
subjects. In all of them he advocates, first of all, and above 
all, an attitude of negation towards Church and State. Never 
enter the service of the State, even In the provincial and 
urban Institutions, which are granted by the State only as a 
snare. Refuse to support exploitation in any form. Refuse to 
perform military service, whatever the consequences may be : 
for this is the only method of being truly anti-militarist. 
Never have anything to do with Courts, even if you are 
offended or assailed; — nothing but evil results from them. 
Such a negative and eminently sincere attitude, he maintains, 
would better promote the cause of true progress than any 
revolutionary means. As a first step, however, towards the 
abolition of modern slavery, he also recommends the national- 
isation, or rather the munlcipalisatlon, of land. 

It is manifest that the works of art which he wrote during 
the last five-and-twenty years, after 1876, must bear deep 
traces of his new point of view. He began, first, by writing for 
the people, and although most of his small stories for popular 
reading are spoiled to some extent by the too obvious desire 
of drawing a certain moral, and a consequent distortion of 
facts, there are a few among them — especially How much 
Land is required for a Man — which are wonderfully artistic. 
The Death of Ivan Illytch need only be named to recall the 
profound Impression produced by its appearance. 

In order to speak to a still wider audience In the theatres 
for the people, which began to be started in Russia about that 
time, he wrote The Power of Darkness, — a most terrible 
drama from the life of the peasants, in which he aimed at 
producing a deep impression by means of a Shakespearian or 
rather Marlowian realism. His other play — The Fruits of 
Civilisation — Is in a comical vein. The superstitions of the 



146 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

'* upper classes " as regards spiritualism are ridiculed in it. 
Both plays (the former — with alterations in the final scene) 
are played with success on the Russian stage. 

However, it is not only the novels and dramas of this 
period which are works of Art. The five religious works 
which have been named on a preceding page are also works 
of art in the best sense of the word, as they contain descrip- 
tive pages of a high artistic value; while the very ways in 
which Tolstoy explains the economical principles of Social- 
ism, or the No-Government principles of Anarchism, are as 
much masterpieces as the best socialistic and anarchistic pages 
of William Morris — far surpassing the latter in simplicity 
and artistic power. 

Kreutzer Sonata is surely, after Anna Karenina, the work 
of Tolstoy which has been the most widely read. However, 
the strange theme of this novel and the crusade against 
marriage altogether which it contains so much attract the 
attention of the reader and usually become the subject of so 
passionate a discussion among those who have read it, that 
the high artistic qualities of this novel and the analysis 
of life which it contains have hardly received the recognition 
they deserve. The moral teaching that Tolstoy has put in 
Kreutzer Sonata hardly need be mentioned, the more so since 
the author himself has withdrawn it to a very great extent. 
But for the appreciation of Tolstoy's work and for the 
comprehension of the artist's inner life this novel has 
a deep meaning. No stronger accusation against marriage 
for mere outer attraction, without intellectual union or sym- 
pathy of purpose between husband and wife, has ever been 
written; and the struggle that goes on between Koznysheff 
and his wife is one of the most deeply dramatic pages of 
married life that we possess in any literature. 

Tolstoy's What is Art? is mentioned in Chapter VIII. of 
this book. His greatest production of the latest period is, 
however. Resurrection. It is not enough to say that the energy 
and youthfulness of the septuagenarian author which appear 
in this novel are simply marvellous. Its absolute artistic 
qualities are so high that if Tolstoy had written nothing else 
but Resurrection he would have been recognised as one of 
the great writers. All those parts of the novel which deal with 



tolst(5y 147 

Society, beginning with the letter of " Missie," and Missie 
herself, her father, and so on, are of the same high standard 
as the best pages of the first volume of War and Peace. 
Everything which deals with the Court, the jurymen, and the 
prisons is again of the same high standard. It may be said, 
of course, that the principal hero, Nekludoff, is not sufficiently 
living; but this is quite unavoidable for a figure which is meant 
to represent, if not the author himself, at least his ideas or 
his experience : this is a drawback of all novels containing so 
much of an autobiographical element. As regards all the 
other figures, however, of which so immense a number pass 
under our eyes, each of them has its own character in striking 
relief, even if the figure (like one of the judges or of the 
jurymen, or the daughter of a jailer) appears only on a 
single page, never to reappear again. 

The number of questions which are raised in this novel — 
social, political, party questions, and so on — is so great that 
a whole society, such as it is, living and throbbing with all its 
problems and contradictions, appears before the reader, and 
this is not Russian Society only, but Society the civilised world 
over. In fact, apart from the scenes which deal with the 
political prisoners, Resurrection applies to all nations. It is 
the most international of all works of Tolstoy. At the same 
time the main question: "Has Society the right to judge? 
Is it reasonable in maintaining a system of tribunals and 
prisons? " this terrible question which the coming century is 
bound to solve, is so forcibly impressed upon the reader that 
it is impossible to read the book without, at least, conceiving 
serious doubts about our system of punishments. Ce livre 
pesera sur la conscience du siecle. ("This book will weigh 
upon the conscience of the century ") was the remark of a 
French critic, which I heard repeated. And of the justice 
of this remark I have had the opportunity of convincing 
myself during my numerous conversations in America with 
persons having anything to do with prisons. The book 
weighs already on their consciences. 

The same remark applies to the whole activity of Tolstoy. 
Whether his attempt at impressing upon men the elements 
of a universal religion which — he believes — reason trained 
by science might accept, and which man might take as guid- 



148 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

ance for his moral life, attaining at the same time towards 
the solution of the great social problem and all questions 
connected with It — whether this bold attempt be successful 
or not, can only be decided by time. But It Is absolutely 
certain that no man since the times of Rousseau has so 
profoundly stirred the human conscience as Tolstoy has 
by his moral writings. He has fearlessly stated the moral 
aspects of all the burning questions of the day, in a form 
so deeply Impressive that whoever has read any one of his 
writings can no longer forget these questions or set them 
aside; one feels the necessity of finding, In one way or 
another, some solution. Tolstoy^s Influence, consequently, Is 
not one which may be measured by mere years or decades 
of years: It will last long. Nor Is It limited to one country 
only. In millions of copies his works are read In all languages, 
appealing equally to men and women of all classes and all 
nations, and everywhere producing the same result. Tolstoy 
is now the most loved man — the most touchingly loved man 
— in the world. 



PART V 

Goncharoff, Dostoyevskiy, Nekrasoff 



CHAPTER V 

GONCHAROFF — DOSTOYEVSKI — NEKRASOFF 

GONCHAROFF— 0^/omo^— The Russian Malady of Oblomoff^ 
dom — Is It exclusively Russian ? — The Precipice — Dostoyevskly — 
His first Novel — General Character of his Work — Memoirs 
from a Dead House — Down-trodden and Offended — Crime and 
Punishment — The Brothers Karamazoff — Nekrasoff — Discus- 
sions about his Talent — His Love of the People — Apotheosis of 
Woman — Other Prose-writers of the same Epoch — Serghel 
Aksakoff — Dahl — Ivan PanaefE — Hvoschlnskaya (V. Krestov- 
skly-pseudonyme). Poets of the same Epoch — KoltsoflE — NIkltin 
PlescheefE. The Admirers of Pure Art : Tutcheff — A Maykoff — 
Scherblna — Polonskiy — ^A. Fet — ^A. K. Tolstoy — ^The Trans- 
lators. 



G 



GONCHAROFF. 

ONCHAROFF occupies In Russian literature the 
next place after Turgueneff and Tolstoy, but this 

extremely interesting writer is almost entirely 

unknown to English readers. He was not a prolific writer 
and, apart from small sketches, and a book of travel {The 
Frigate Pallas)^ he has left only three novels: A Com- 
mon Story (translated into English by Constance Garnett), 
Ohlomoff, and The Precipice, of which the second, Oblomoff, 
has conquered for him a position by the side of the two 
great writers just named. 

In Russia Goncharoff is always described as a writer of 
an eminently objective talent, but this qualification must 
evidently be taken with a certain restriction. A writer is never 
entirely objective — he has his sympathies and antipathies, 
and do what he may, they will appear even through his most 
objective descriptions. On the other hand, a good writer 
seldom introduces his own individual emotions to speak for 
his heroes : there is none of this in either Turgueneff or Tol- 

151 



152 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

stoy. However, with Turgueneff and Tolstoy you feel that 
they live with their heroes, that they suffer and feel happy 
with them — that they are In love when the hero Is In love, 
and that they feel miserable when misfortunes befall him; 
but you do not feel that to the same extent with Goncharoff. 
Surely he has lived through every feeling of his heroes, but 
the attitude he tries to preserve towards them is an attitude 
of strict Impartiality — an attitude, I hardly need say, which, 
properly speaking, a writer can never maintain. An epic 
repose and an epic profusion of details certainly characterise 
Goncharoff 's novels ; but these details are not obtrusive, they 
do not diminish the Impression, and the reader's interest in 
the hero Is not distracted by all these minutiae, because, under 
Goncharoff's pen, they never appear insignificant. One feels, 
however, that the author Is a person who takes human life 
quietly, and will never give way to a burst of passion, what- 
soever may happen to his heroes. 

The most popular of the novels of Goncharoff is Oblomoff, 
which, like Turgueneff's Fathers and Sons, and Tolstoy's 
H^ar and Peace and Resurrection, Is, I venture to say, one 
of the profoundest productions of the last half century. It 
Is thoroughly Russian, so Russian indeed that only a Russian 
can fully appreciate It; but it Is at the same time universally 
human, as it introduces a type which Is almost as universal 
as that of Hamlet or Don Quixote. 

Oblomoff is a Russian nobleman, of moderate means — the 
owner of six or seven hundred serfs — and the time of action 
is, let us say, in the fifties of the nineteenth century. All the 
early childhood of Oblomoff was such as to destroy in him 
any capacity of Initiative. Imagine a spacious, well-kept 
nobleman's estate In the middle of Russia, somewhere on 
the picturesque banks of the Volga, at a time when there 
were no railways to disturb a peaceful patriarchal life, and no 
*' questions " that could worry the minds of its inhabitants. 
A *' reign of plenty," both for the owners of the estate and 
the scores of their servants and retainers, characterises their 
life. Nurses, servants, serving boys and maids surround the 
child from its earliest days, their only thoughts being how 
to feed it, make It grow, render It strong, and never worry 
it with either much learning or, in fact, with any sort of 



gonchar6ff 153 

work. " From my earliest childhood, have I myself ever put 
on my socks? " Oblomoff asks later on. In the morning, the 
coming mid-day meal Is the main question for all the house- 
hold; and when the dinner is over, at an early hour of the 
day, sleep — a reign of sleep, sleep rising to an epical degree 
which implies full loss of consciousness for all the inhabitants 
of the mansion and its dependencies — spreads its wings for 
several hours from the bedchamber of the landlord even as 
far as the remotest corner of the retainers' dwellings. 

In these surroundings Oblomoff's childhood and youth 
were passed. Later on, he enters the University; but his trust- 
worthy servants follow him to the capital, and the lazy, 
sleepy atmosphere of his native ' Oblomovka ' (the estate) 
holds him even there in its enchanted arms. A few lectures 
at the university, some elevating talk with a young friend in 
the evening, some vague aspiration towards the ideal, occa- 
sionally stir the young man's heart; and a beautiful vision 
begins to rise before his eyes — these things are certainly a 
necessary accompaniment of the years spent at the univer- 
sity; but the soothing, soporific influence of Oblomovka, its 
quietness and laziness, its feeling of a fully guaranteed, undis- 
turbed existence, deaden even these impressions of youth. 
Other students grow hot in their discussions, and join 
" circles." Oblomoff looks quietly at all that and asks him- 
self : '* What is it for? " And then, the moment that the young 
student has returned home after his university years, the 
same atmosphere again envelops him. '^ Why should you 
think and worry yourself with this or that? " Leave that 
to " others." Have you not there your old nurse, thinking 
whether there Is anything else she might do for your 
comfort ? 

" My people did not let me have even a wish," Goncharoff wrote 
in his short autobiography, from which we discovered the close con- 
nection between the author and his hero: " all had been foreseen and 
attended to long since. The old servants, with my nurse at their head, 
looked Into my eyes to guess my wishes, trying to remember what I 
liked best when I was with them, where my writing table ought to 
be put, which chair I preferred to the others, how to make my bed. 
The cook tried to remember which dishes I had liked In my childhood 
— and all could not admire me enough." 



154 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Such was Oblomoff's youth, and such was to a very great 
extent Goncharoff's youth and character as well. 

The novel begins with Oblomoff's morning in his lodgings 
at St. Petersburg. It Is late, but he Is still In bed; several 
times already he has tried to get up, several times his foot 
was in the slipper; but, after a moment's reflection, he has 
returned under his blankets. His trusty Zakhar — his old faith- 
ful servant who formerly had carried him as a baby in his 
arms — Is by his side, and brings him his glass of tea. Visitors 
come in; they try to Induce Oblomoff to go out, to take a 
drive to the yearly First of May promenade; but — " What 
for? " he asks. " For what should I take all this trouble, and 
do all this moving about? " And he remains in bed. 

His only trouble Is that the landlord wants him to leave 
the lodgings which he occupies. The rooms are dull, dusty — 
Zakhar is no great admirer of cleanliness; but to change 
lodgings is such a calamity for Oblomoff that he tries to 
avoid it by all possible means, or at least to postpone it. 

Oblomoff Is very well educated, well-bred, he has a refined 
taste, and in matters of art he is a fine judge. Everything 
that is vulgar is repulsive to him. He never will commit 
any dishonest act; he cannot. He also shares the highest 
and noblest aspirations of his contemporaries. Like many 
others, he is ashamed of being a serf-owner, and he has in 
his head a certain scheme which he is going to put some 
day Into writing — a scheme which, if it is only carried out, 
will surely improve the condition of his peasants and even- 
tually free them. 

" The joy of higher inspirations was accessible to him"- — Gon- 
charoff writes; "the miseries of mankind were not strange to him. 
Sometimes he cried bitterly in the depths of his heart about human 
sorrows. He felt unnamed, unknown sufferings and sadness, and a 
desire of going somewhere far away, — probably into that world 
towards which his friend Stoltz had tried to take him in his younger 
days. Sweet tears would then flow upon his cheeks. It would also 
happen that he would himself feel hatred towards human vices, 
towards deceit, towards the evil which is spread all over the world; 
and he would then feel the desire to show mankind its diseases. 
Thoughts would then burn within him, rolling in his head like 
waves in the sea; they would grow into decisions which would make 



gonchar6ff 155 

all his blood boil ; his muscles would be ready to move, his sinews 
would be strained, intentions would be on the point of transforming 
themselves into decisions. . . . Moved by a moral force he 
would rapidly change over and over again his position in his bed; 
with a fixed stare he would half lift himself from it, move his hand, 
look about with inspired eyes ... the inspiration would 
seem ready to realise itself, to transform itself into an act of heroism, 
and then, what miracles, what admirable results might one not expect 
from so great an efifort! But — the morning would pass away, the 
shades of evening would take the place of the broad daylight, and with 
them the strained forces of Oblomoff would incline towards rest — 
the storms in his soul would subside — his head would shake oH the 
worrying thoughts — his blood would circulate more slowly in his 
veins — and Oblomoff would slowly turn over, and recline on his 
back ; looking sadly through his window upon the sky, following sadly 
with his eyes the sun which was setting gloriously behind the neigh- 
bouring house — and how many times had he thus followed with his 
eyes that sunset ! " 

In such lines as these Goncharoff depicts the state of 
Inactivity Into which Oblomoff had fallen at the age of about 
thirty-five. It Is the supreme poetry of laziness — a laziness 
created by a whole life of old-time landlordism. 

Oblomoff, as I just said, Is very uncomfortable In his 
lodgings ; moreover, the landlord, who Intends to make some 
repairs In the house, wants him to leave; but for Oblomoff 
to change his lodgings Is something so terrific, so extraordi- 
nary, that he tries by all sorts of artifices to postpone the 
undesirable moment. His old Zakhar tries to convince him 
that they cannot remain any longer in that house, and ven- 
tures the unfortunate word, that, after all, " others " move 
when they have to. 

" I thought," he said, " that others are not worse than we are, and 
that they move sometimes ; so we could move, too." 

"What, what?" exclaimed Oblomoff, rising from his easy chair, 
" what is it that you say? " 

Zakhar felt very ashamed. He could not understand what had 
provoked the reproachful exclamation of his master, and did not 
reply. 

" Others are not worse than we are! " repeated Iliya Iliych (Oblo- 
moff) with a sense of horror. " That is what you have come to. Now 
I shall know henceforth that I am for you the same as ' the others '." 



156 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

After a time Oblomoff calls Zakhar back and has with him 
an explanation which is worth reproducing. 

" Have you ever thought what It meant — ' the others,' " Oblomoff 
began. " Must I tell you what this means? " 

Poor Zakhar shifted about uneasily, like a bear in his den, and 
sighed aloud. 

" ' Another ' — that means a wild, uneducated man ; he lives poorly, 
dirtily, in an attic ; he can sleep on a piece of felt stretched somewhere 
on the floor — what does that matter to him ? — Nothing ! He will feed 
on potatoes and herrings; misery compels him continuously to shift 
from one place to another. He runs about all day long — he, he may, 
of course, go to new lodgings. There is Lagaeff; he takes under his 
arm his ruler and his two shirts wrapped in a handkerchief, and he 
is off. ' Where are you going ? ' you ask him. — ' I am moving ', he 
says. That is what * the others ' means. — Am I one of those others, 
do you mean ? " 

Zakhar threw a glance upon his master, shifted from one foot to 
the other, but said nothing. 

"Do you understand now what * another ' means?" continued 
Oblomoff. " * Another,' that is the man who cleans his own boots, 
who himself puts on his clothes — without any help! Of course, he 
may sometimes look like a gentleman, but that is mere deceit: he does 
not know what it means to have a servant — he has nobody to send to 
the shop to make his purchases ; he makes them himself — he will even 
poke his own fire, and occasionally use a duster." 

" Yes," replied Zakhar sternly, " there are many such people 
among the Germans." 

" That's it, that's it ! And I ? do you think that I am one of 
them?" 

" No, you are different," Zakhar said, still unable to understand 
what his master was driving at. . . . " But God knows what is 
coming upon you. . . ." 

"Ah! I am different! Most certainly, I am. Do I run about? do 
I work ? don't I eat whenever I am hungry ? Look at me — am I thin ? 
am I sickly to look at? Is there anything I lack? Thank God, I have 
people to do things for me. I have never put on my own socks since 
I was born, thank God! Must I also be restless like the others? — 
What for? — And to whom am I saying all this? Have you not been 
with me from childhood? . . . You have seen it all. You know 
that I have received a delicate education; that I have never suffered 
from cold or from hunger, — never knew want — never worked 
for my own bread — have never done any sort of dirty work. . . . 
Well, how dare you put me on the same level as the * others ' ? " 



gonchar(5ff 157 

Later on, when Zakhar brought him a glass of water, " No, wait 
a moment," Oblomoff said. " I ask you, How did you dare to so deeply 
offend your master, whom you carried in your arms while he was a 
baby, whom you have served all your life, and who has always been 
a benefactor to you?" Zakhar could not stand it any longer — the 
word benefactor broke him down — he began to blink. The less he 
understood the speech of Iliya Iliych, the more sad he felt. Finally, 
the reproachful words of his master made him break into tears, while 
Ilya Iliych seizing this pretext for postponing his letter-writing till 
to-morrow, tells Zakhar, " you had better pull the blinds down and 
cover me nicely, and see that nobody disturbs me. Perhaps I may sleep 
for an hour or so, and at half past five wake me for dinner." 

About this time Oblomoff meets a young girl, Olga, who 
is perhaps one of the finest representatives of Russian women 
in our novels. A mutual friend, Stoltz, has said much to her 
about Oblomoff — about his talents and possibilities, and also 
about the laziness of his life, which would surely ruin him 
if it continued. Women are always ready to undertake rescue 
work, and Olga tries to draw Oblomoff out of his sleepy, 
vegetative existence. She sings beautifully, and Oblomoff, 
who is a great lover of music, is deeply moved by her 
songs. 

Gradually Olga and Oblomoff fall in love with each other, 
and she tries to shake off his laziness, to arouse him to higher 
interests in life. She insists that he shall finish the great 
scheme for the improvement of his peasant serfs upon which 
he is supposed to have been working for years. She tries 
to awaken in him an interest for art and literature, to create 
for him a life in which his gifted nature shall find a field 
of activity. It seems at first as if the vigour and charm of 
Olga are going to renovate Oblomoff by insensible steps. He 
wakes up, he returns to life. The love of Olga for Oblomoff, 
which is depicted in its development with a mastery almost 
equalling that of Turgueneff, grows deeper and deeper, and 
the inevitable next step — marriage — is approaching. . . . 
But this is enough to frighten away Oblomoff. To take this 
step he would have to bestir himself, to go to his estate, to 
break the lazy monotony of his life, and this is too much 
for him. He lingers and hesitates to make the first necessary 
steps. He postpones them from day to day, and finally he 



158 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

falls back Into his Oblomoffdom, and returns to his sofa, his 
dressing gown, and his slippers. Olga Is ready to do the 
impossible; she tries to carry him away by her love and her 
energy; but she Is forced to realise that all her endeavours 
are useless, and that she has trusted too much to her own 
strength: the disease of Oblomoff is Incurable. She has to 
abandon him, and Goncharoff describes their parting In a 
most beautiful scene, from which I will give here a few of 
the concluding passages : 

"Then we must part?" she said. . . . " If we married, 
what would come next? " He replied nothing. " You would fall asleep, 
deeper and deeper every day — ^is it not so? And I — you see what I 
am — I shall not grow old, I shall never be tired of life. We should 
live from day to day and year to year, looking forward to Christmas, 
and then to the Carnival; we should go to parties, dance, and think 
about nothing at all. We should lie down at night thanking God 
that one day has passed, and next morning we should wake up with 
the desire that to-day may be like yesterday ; that would be our future, 
is it not so? But is that life? I should wither under it— I should die. 
And for what, Illya? Could I make you happy? " 

He cast his eyes around and tried to move, to run away, but his 
feet would not obey him. He wanted to say something, but his mouth 
was dry, his tongue motionless, his voice would not come out of his 
throat. He moved his hand towards her, then he began something, 
with lowered voice, but could not finish it, and with his look he said 
to her, " Good-bye — farewell." 

She also wanted to say something, but could not — moved her hand 
in his direction, but before it had reached his It dropped. She wanted 
to say " Farewell," but her voice broke In the middle of the word and 
took a false accent. Then her face quivered, she put her hand and her 
head on his shoulder and cried. It seemed now as If all her weapons 
had been taken out of her hand — reasoning had gone — there remained 
only the woman, helpless against her sorrow. " Farewell, Farewell " 
came out of her sobbings. . . . 

" No," said Olga, trying to look upon him through her tears, " it is 
only now that I see that I loved in you what I wanted you to be, I 
loved the future Oblomoff. You are good, honest, Iliya, you are tender 
as a dove, you put your head under your wing and want nothing more, 
you are ready all your life to coo under a roof . . . but I am not 
so, that would be too little for me. I want something more — ^what, I 
do not know ; can you tell me what It is that I want ? give me it, that 
I should. . . . As to sweetness, there is plenty of it everywhere." 



GONCHARCJFF 159 

They part, Olga passes through a severe Illness, and a 
few months later we see Oblomoff married to the landlady 
of his rooms, a very respectable person with beautiful elbows, 
and a great master in kitchen affairs and household work 
generally. As to Olga, she marries Stoltz later on. But this 
Stoltz is rather a symbol of intelligent industrial activity 
than a living man. He is invented, and I pass him by. 

The impression which this novel produced in Russia, on 
its appearance in 1859, was Indescribable. It was a far 
greater event than the appearance of a new work by Tur- 
gueneff. All educated Russia read Oblomoff and discussed 
" Oblomoffdom." Everyone recognised something of himself 
In Oblomoff, felt the disease of Oblomoff In his own veins. 
As to Olga, thousands of young people fell In love with 
her: her favourite song, the " Casta Diva," became their 
favourite melody. And now, forty years afterwards, one can 
read and re-read " Oblomoff " with the same pleasure as 
nearly half a century ago, and It has lost nothing of its 
meaning, while It has acquired many new ones: there are 
always living Oblomoffs. 

At the time of the appearance of this novel " Oblomoff- 
dom " became a current word to designate the state of 
Russia. All Russian life, all Russian history, bears traces of 
the malady — that laziness of mind and heart, that right 
to laziness proclaimed as a virtue, that conservatism and 
inertia, that contempt of feverish activity, which characterise 
Oblomoff and were so much cultivated in serfdom times, 
even amongst the best men In Russia — and even among the 
malcontents. " A sad result of serfdom " — It was said then. 
But, as we live further away from serfdom times, we begin 
to realise that Oblomoff is not dead amongst us: that serf- 
dom Is not the only thing which creates this type of men, 
but that the very conditions of wealthy life, the routine of 
civilised life, contribute to maintain It. 

" A racial feature, distinctive of the Russian race," others 
said; and they were right, too, to a great extent. The absence 
of a love for struggle; the " let me alone " attitude, the want 
of "aggressive" virtue; non-resistance and passive submis- 
sion — these are to a great extent distinctive features of 
the Russian race. And this Is probably why a Russian writer 



i6o RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

has so well pictured the type. But with all that, the Oblomoff 
type Is not limited to Russia : It Is a universal type — a type 
which Is nurtured by our present civilisation, amidst Its 
opulent, self-satisfied life. It Is the conservative type. Not 
in the political sense, but In the sense of the conservatism 
of well-being. A man who has reached a certain welfare or 
has got it by Inheritance Is not willingly moved to under- 
take anything new, because It might mean Introducing some- 
thing unpleasant and full of worries Into his quiet and 
smooth existence. Therefore he lingers In a life devoid of 
the true impulses of real life, from fear that these might 
disturb the quietness of his vegetative existence. 

Oblomoff knows the value of Art and its impulses; he 
knows the higher enthuslams of poetical love: he has felt 
both. But — '* What is the use? " he asks again. " Why all 
this trouble of going about and seeing people? What is it 
for? " He is not a Diogenes who has no needs. Far from 
that. If his meat be served too dry and his fowl be burned, 
he resents It. It is the higher Interests which he thinks not 
worth the trouble they occasion. When he was young he 
thought of setting his serfs free — in such a way that the 
step should not much diminish his income. But gradually 
he has forgotten all about that, and now his main thought 
Is, how to shake off all the worries of the management of 
his estate. " I don't know " — he says — " what obligatory 
work is, what is farmer's work, what ownership means, what 
a poor farmer Is and what a rich one ; what makes a quarter 
of wheat, when wheat has to be sown and reaped, or when it 
has to be sold." And when he dreams of country life on his 
estate he thinks of pretty greenhouses, of picnics in the woods, 
of Idyllic walks In company with a goodly, submissive and 
plump wife, who looks Into his eyes and worships him. The 
question of why and how all this wealth comes to him, and 
why all these people must work for him, never worries his 
mind. But — how many of those all over the world, who own 
factories, wheat fields and coal mines, or hold shares in them, 
ever think of mines, wheat fields and factories otherwise than 
in the way Oblomoff thought of his country seat — that Is, in 
an idyllic contemplation of how others work, without the 
slightest Intention of sharing their burdens ? 



G0NCHAR(5fF i6i 

The city-bred Oblomoffs may take the place of the country- 
bred, but the type remains. And then comes the long succes- 
sion of Oblomoffs In Intellectual, social, nay even In personal, 
life. Everything new In the domain of the Intellect makes 
them restless, and they are only satisfied when all men have 
accepted the same Ideas. They are suspicious of social reform, 
because the very suggestion of a change frightens them. Love 
Itself frightens them. Oblomoff Is loved by Olga; he, too, 
loves her; but to take that step — marriage — frightens him. 
She Is too restless. She wants him to go about and to see 
pictures; to read and to discuss this and that; to throw him 
Into the whirl of life. She loves him so much that she Is ready 
to follow him without asking any questions. But this very 
power of love, this very intensity of life, frightens an 
Oblomoff. 

He tries to find pretexts for avoiding this irruption of 
life Into his vegetative existence; he prizes so much his 
little material comfort that he dares not love — dares not take 
love with all its consequences — " its tears, Its impulses, its 
life," and soon falls back into his cosy Oblomoffdom. 

Decidedly, Oblomoffdom is not a racial disease. It exists 
on both continents and In all latitudes. And besides the 
Oblomoffdom which Gontcharoff has so well depicted, and 
which even Olga was powerless to break through, there is the 
squire's Oblomoffdom, the red-tape Oblomoffdom of the 
Government offices, the scientist's Oblomoffdom and, above 
all, the family-life Oblomoffdom, to which all of us readily 
pay so large a tribute. 

THE PRECIPICE 

The last and longest novel of Gontcharoff, The Precipice, 
has not the unity of conception and workmanship which 
characterise Oblomof, It contains wonderful pages, worthy 
of a writer of genius; but, all said, it is a failure. It took 
Goncharoff full ten years to write it, and having begun to 
depict In It types of one generation, he remodelled later on 
these types into types from the next generation — at a time 
when the sons differed totally from their fathers: he has 
told this himself In a very interesting critical sketch of his 



i62 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

own work. As a result there is no wholeness, so to speak, 
In the main personages of the novel. The woman upon 
whom he has bestowed all his admiration, Vyera, and 
whom he tries to represent as most sympathetic. Is certainly 
Interesting, but not sympathetic at all. One would say that 
Goncharoff's mind was haunted by two women of two totally 
different types when he pictured his Vyera — the one whom 
he tried — and failed — to picture In Sophie Byelovodova, 
and the other — the coming woman of the sixties, of whom he 
saw some features, and whom he admired, without fully 
understanding her. Vyera's cruelty towards her grandmother, 
and towards Raisky, the hero, render her most unsympa- 
thetic, although you feel that the author quite adores her. As 
to the Nihilist, Volokhoff, he is simply a caricature — taken 
perhaps from real life, — even seemingly from among the 
author's personal acquaintances, — but obviously drawn with 
the desire of ventilating personal feelings of dislike. One 
feels a personal drama concealed behind the pages of the 
novel. Goncharoff's first sketch of Volokhoff was, as he 
wrote himself, some sort of Bohemian Radical of the forties 
who had retained In full the Don Juanesque features of the 
" Byronists " of the preceding generation. Gradually, how- 
ever, Goncharoff, who had not yet finished his novel by the 
end of the fifties, transformed the figure Into a Nihilist of the 
sixties — a revolutionist — and the result Is that one has 
the sensation of the double origin of Volokhoff, as one feels 
the double origin of Vyera. 

The only figure of the novel really true to life Is the grand- 
mother of Vyera. This Is an admirably painted figure of the 
simple, commonsense. Independent woman of old Russia, 
while Martha, the sister of Vyera, Is an excellent picture of 
the commonplace girl, full of life, respectful of old traditions 
— to be one day the honest and reliable mother of a family. 
These two figures are the work of a great artist; but all the 
other figures are made-up, and consequently are failures ; and 
yet there is much exaggeration In the tragical way In which 
Vyera's fall is taken by her grandmother. As to the back- 
ground of the novel — the estate on a precipice leading to the 
Volga — It IS one of the most beautiful landscapes In Russian 
literature. 



DOSTOYfeVSKIY 163 

DOSTOYEVSKIY 

Few authors have been so well received, from their very 
first appearance In literature, as Dostoyevskly was. In 1845 
he arrived In St. Petersburg, a quite unknown young man who 
only two years before had finished his education In a school 
of military engineers, and after having spent two years In 
the engineering service had then abandoned It with the Inten- 
tion of devoting himself to literature. He was only twenty- 
four when he wrote his first novel, Poor People, which his ,v 
school-comrade, Grigorovltch, gave to the poet Nekrasoff, 
offering It for a literary almanack. Dostoyevskly had Inwardly 
doubted whether the novel would even be read by the editor. 
He was living then In a poor, miserable room, and was fast 
asleep when at four o'clock In the morning Nekrasoff and 
Grigorovltch knocked at his door. They threw themselves on 
Dostoyevskly's neck, congratulating him with tears In their 
eyes. Nekrasoff and his friend had begun to read the novel 
late In the evening ; they could not stop reading till they came 
to the end, and they were both so deeply Impressed by it that 
they could not help going on this nocturnal expedition, to see 
the author and tell him what they felt. A few days later 
Dostoyevskly was Introduced to the great critic of the time, 
Byelinskly, and from him he received the same warm recep- 
tion. As to the reading public, the novel produced quite a 
sensation. The same must be said about all subsequent novels 
of Dostoyevskly. They had an Immense sale all over Russia. 

The life of Dostoyevskly was extremely sad. In the year 
1849, ^ou^ years after he had won his first success with Poor 
People, he became mixed up In the affairs of some Fourlerlsts 
(members of the circles of Petrashevskly) , who used to meet 
together to read the works of Fourier, commenting on them, 
and talking about the necessity of a Socialistic movement In 
Russia. At one of these gatherings Dostoyevskly read, and 
copied later on, a certain letter from Byelinskly to Gogol, In 
which the great critic spoke In rather sharp language about 
the Russian Church and the State; he also took part In a meet- 
ing at which the starting of a secret printing office was dis- 
cussed. He was arrested, tried (of course with closed doors), 
and, with several others, was condemned to death. In Decem- 



1 64 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

ber, 1 849, he was taken to a public square, placed on the scaf- 
fold, under a gibbet, to listen there to a profusedly-worded 
death-sentence, and only at the last moment came a messenger 
from Nicholas I., bringing a pardon. Three days later he was 
transported to Siberia and locked up In a hard-labour prison 
at Omsk. There he remained for four years, when owing to 
some Influence at St. Petersburg he was liberated, only to be 
made a soldier. During his detention In the hard-labour prison 
he was submitted, for some minor offence, to the terrible 
punishment of the cat-o'-nlne-talls, and from that time dates 
his disease — epilepsy — which he never quite got rid of during 
all his life. The coronation amnesty of Alexander II. did not 
improve Dostoyevskiy's fate. Not until 1859 — ^^"^ years 
after the advent of Alexander II. to the throne — was the 
great writer pardoned and allowed to return to Russia. He 
died In 1883. 

Dostoyevskly was a rapid writer, and even before his 
arrest he had published ten novels, of which The Double was 
already a forerunner of his later psycho-pathological novels, 
and Netochka Nezvdnova showed a rapidly maturing literary 
talent of the highest quality. On his return from Siberia he 
began publishing a series of novels which produced a deep 
Impression on the reading public. He opened the series by 
a great novel. The Downtrodden and Of ended, which was 
soon followed by Memoirs from a Dead-House, in which he 
described his hard-labour experience. Then came an extremely 
sensational novel. Crime and Punishment, which lately was 
widely read all over Europe and America. The Brothers 
Karamdzof , which is considered his most elaborate work, is 
even more sensational, while The Youth, The Idiot, The 
Devils are a series of shorter novels devoted to the same 
psycho-pathological problems. 

If Dostoyevskiy's work had been judged from the purely 
aesthetic point of view, the verdict of critics concerning its 
literary value would have been anything but flattering. 
Dostoyevskly wrote with such rapidity and he so little cared 
about the working out of his novels, that, as Dobroluboff 
has shown, the literary form is In many places almost below 
\ criticism. His heroes speak in a slipshod way, continually 
repeating themselves, and whatever hero appears in the 



DOSTOYEVSKIY 165 

novel (especially is this so In The Downtrodden) ^ you feel It 
is the author who speaks. Besides, to these serious defects one 
must add the extremely romantic and obsolete forms of the 
plots of his novels, the disorder of their construction, and 
the unnatural succession of their events — to say nothing of the 
atmosphere of the lunatic asylum with which the later ones 
are permeated. And yet, with all this, the works of Dostoyev- 
skly are penetrated with such a deep feeling of reality, and by 
the side of the most unreal characters one finds characters so 
well known to every one of us, and so real, that all these 
defects are redeemed. Even when you think that Dostoyev- 
skly's record of the conversations of his heroes Is not correct, 
you feel that the men whom he describes — at least some of 
them — were exactly such as he wanted to describe them. 

The Memoirs from a Dead-House Is the only production 
of Dostoyevskly which can be recognised as truly artistic: its 
leading idea is beautiful, and the form Is worked out in con- 
formity with the idea ; but in his later productions the author 
is so much oppressed by his ideas, all very vague, and grows 
so nervously excited over them that he cannot find the 
proper form. The favourite themes of Dostoyevskly are the 
men who have been brought so low by the circumstances of 
their lives, that they have not even a conception of there 
being a possibility of rising above these conditions. You feel 
moreover that Dostoyevskly finds a real pleasure in describ- 
ing the sufferings, moral and physical, of the down-trod- 
den — that he revels in representing that misery of mind, 
that absolute hopelessness of redress, and that completely 
broken-down condition of human nature which is character- 
istic of neuro-pathological cases. By the side of such sufferers 
you find a few others who are so deeply human that all your 
sympathies go with them; but the favourite heroes of Dos- 
toyevskly are the man and the woman who consider them- 
selves as not having either the force to compel respect, or even 
the right of being treated as human beings. They once have 
made some timid attempt at defending their personalities, but 
they have succumbed, and never will try it again. They will 
sink deeper and deeper in their wretchedness, and die, either 
from consumption or from exposure, or they will become the 
victims of some mental affection — a sort of half-lucid lunacy, 



1 66 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

during which man occasionally rises to the highest concep- 
tions of human philosophy — while some will conceive an 
embltterment which will bring them to commit some crime, 
followed by repentance the very next instant after it has been 
done. 

In Downtrodden and Offended we see a young man madly 
in love with a girl from a moderately poor family. This girl 
falls In love with a very aristocratic prince — a man without 
principles, but charming In his childish egotism — extremely 
attractive by his sincerity, and with a full capacity for quite 
unconsciously committing the worst crimes towards those with 
whom life brings him into contact. The psychology of both 
the girl and the young aristocrat Is very good, but where 
Dostoyevskiy appears at his best Is In representing how the 
other young man, rejected by the girl, devotes the whole of 
his existence to being the humble servant of that girl, and 
against his own will becomes instrumental in throwing her 
into the hands of the young aristocrat. All this is quite possi- 
ble, all this exists in life, and it is all told by Dostoyevskiy so 
as to make one feel the deepest commiseration with the poor 
and the down-trodden; but even in this novel the pleasure 
which the author finds in representing the unfathomable sub- 
mission and servitude of his heroes, and the pleasure they 
find in the very sufferings and the Ill-treatment that has been 
inflicted upon them — is repulsive to a sound mind. 

The next great novel of Dostoyevskiy, Crime and Punish- 
ment, produced quite a sensation. Its hero is a young student, 
Raskolnikoff, who deeply loves his mother and his sister — 
both extremely poor, like himself — and who, haunted by the 
desire of finding some money in order to finish his studies 
and to become a support to his dear ones, comes to the idea 
of killing an old woman — a private money-lender whom he 
knows and who Is said to possess a few thousand roubles. A 
series of more or less fortuitous circumstances confirms him 
in this idea and pushes him this way. Thus, his sister, who sees 
no escape from their poverty. Is going at last to sacrifice her- 
self for her family, and to marry a certain despicable, elderly 
man with much money, and Raskolnikofi Is firmly decided to 
prevent this marriage. At the same time he meets with an old 
man — a small civil service clerk and a drunkard who has a 



DOSTOYfevSKIY 167 

most sympathetic daughter from the first marriage, Sonya. 
The family are at the lowest Imaginable depths of destitution 
— such as can only be found In a large city like St. Petersburg, 
and Raskolnlkoff Is brought to take Interest In them. Owing 
to all these circumstances, while he himself sinks deeper and 
deeper Into the darkest misery, and realises the depths of 
hopeless poverty and misery which surround him, the Idea of 
killing the old money-lending woman takes a firm hold of 
him. He accomplishes the crime and, of course, as might 
have been foreseen, does not take advantage of the money: 
he even does not find It In his excitement; and, after having 
lived for a few days haunted by remorse and shame — again 
under the pressure of a series of various circumstances which 
add to the feeling of remorse — he goes to surrender himself, 
denouncing himself as the murderer of the old woman and 
her sister. 

This is, of course, only the framework of the novel; In 
reality It is full of the most thrilling scenes of poverty on the 
one hand and of moral degradation on the other, while a 
number of secondary characters — an elderly gentleman In 
whose family Raskolnlkoff's sister has been a governess, the 
examining magistrate, and so on — are Introduced. Besides, 
Dostoyevskly, after having accumulated so many reasons 
which might have brought a Raskolnlkoff to commit such a 
murder, found It necessary to Introduce another theoretical 
motive. One learns In the midst of the novel that Raskol- 
nlkoff, captivated by the modern, current Ideas of materialist 
philosophy, has written and published a newspaper article to 
prove that men are divided Into superior and Inferior beings,, 
and that for the former — Napoleon being a sample of them 
—the current rules of morality are not obligatory. 

Most of the readers of this novel and most of the literary 
critics speak very highly of the psychological analysis of 
Raskolnlkoff's soul and of the motives which brought him to 
his desperate step. However, I will permit myself to remark 
that the very profusion of accidental causes accumulated by 
Dostoyevskly shows how difficult he felt It himself to prove 
that the propaganda of materialistic Ideas could In reality 
bring an honest young man to act as Raskolnlkoff did. Ras- 
kolnikoffs do not become murderers under the Influence of 



1 68 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

such theoretical considerations, while those who murder and 
Invoke such motives, like Lebles at Paris, are not In the least 
of the Raskolnlkoff type. Behind Raskolnlkoff I feel Dos- 
toyevskly trying to decide whether he himself, or a man like 
him, might have been brought to act as Raskolnlkoff did, and 
what would be the psychological explanation If he had been 
driven to do so. But such men do not murder. Besides, 
men like the examining magistrate and M. Swidrlgalloff are 
purely romantic Inventions. 

However, with all Its faults, the novel produces a most 
powerful effect by Its real pictures of slum-life, and Inspires 
every honest reader with the deepest commiseration towards 
even the lowest sunken Inhabitants of the slums. When Dos- 
toyevskly comes to them, he becomes a realist In the very best 
sense of the word, like Turgueneff or Tolstoy. Marmeladoff 
— the old drunken official — his drunken talk and his death, 
his family, and the Incidents which happen after his burial, 
his wife and his daughter Sonya — all these are living beings 
and real Incidents of the life of the poorest ones, and the 
pages that Dostoyevskly gave to them belong to the most 
impressive and the most moving pages In any literature. They 
have the touch of genius. 

The Brothers Karamdzof Is the most artistically worked 
out of Dostoyevskly's novels, but it Is also the novel in which 
all the Inner defects of the author's mind and Imagination 
have found their fullest expression. The philosophy of this 
novel — incredulous Western Europe; wildly passionate,- 
drunken, unreformed Russia ; and Russia reformed by creed 
and monks — the three represented by the three brothers 
Karamazoff — only faintly appears in the background. But 
there is certainly not in any literature such a collection of the 
most repulsive types of mankind — lunatics, half-lunatics, 
criminals in germ and in reality, in all possible gradations — 
as one finds In this novel. A Russian specialist in brain and 
nervous diseases finds representatives of all sorts of such dis- 
eases in Dostoyevskly's novels, and especially in The Brothers 
Karamdzof — the whole being set in a frame which represents 
the strangest mixture of realism and romanticism run wild. 
Whatsoever a certain portion of contemporary critics, fond 
of all sorts of morbid literature, may have written about this 



DOSTOY^VSKIY 169 

novel, the present writer can only say that he finds it, all 
through, so unnatural, so much fabricated for the purpose of 
introducing — here, a bit of morals, there, some abominable 
character taken from a psycho-pathological hospital; or 
again, in order to analyse the feelings of some purely imagi- 
nary criminal, that a few good pages scattered here and there 
do not compensate the reader for the hard task of reading 
these two volumes. 

Dostoyevskiy is still very much read In Russia ; and when, 
some twenty years ago, his novels were first translated into 
French, German and English, they were received as a revela- 
tion. He was praised as one of the greatest writers of our 
own time, and as undoubtedly the one who " had best 
expressed the mystic Slavonic soul " — whatever that expres- 
sion may mean ! Turgueneff was eclipsed by Dostoyevskiy, 
and Tolstoy was forgotten for a time. There was, of course, 
a great deal of hysterical exaggeration in all this, and at the 
present time sound literary critics do not venture to Indulge 
in such praises. The fact Is, that there Is certainly a great 
deal of power In whatever Dostoyevskiy wrote: his powers 
of creation suggest those of Hoffman ; and his sympathy with 
the most down-trodden and down-cast products of the civilisa- 
tion of our large towns Is so deep that It carries away the 
most Indifferent reader and exercises a most powerful 
Impression In the right direction upon young readers. 
His analysis of the most varied specimens of Incipient 
psychical disease Is said to be thoroughly correct. But with 
all that, the artistic qualities of his novels are incomparably 
below those of any one of the great Russian masters : Tolstoy, 
Turgueneff, or Gontcharoff. Pages of consummate realism 
are Interwoven with the most fantastical Incidents worthy 
only of the most incorrigible romantics. Scenes of a thrilling 
interest are Interrupted In order to Introduce a score of pages 
of the most unnatural theoretical discussions. Besides, the 
author Is In such a hurry that he seems never to have had the 
time himself to read over his novels before sending them to 
the printer. And, worst of all, every one of the heroes of 
Dostoyevskiy, especially In his novels of the later period, is 
a person suffering from some psychical disease or from moral 
perversion. As a result, while one may read some of the 



I70 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

novels of Dostoyevskiy with the greatest interest, one is never 
tempted to re-read them, as one re-reads the novels of Tol- 
stoy and Turgueneff, and even those of many secondary novel 
writers; and the present writer must confess that he had the 
greatest pain lately In reading through, for instance. The 
Brothers Karamdzoff, and never could pull himself through 
such a novel as The Idiot. However, one pardons Dostoyev- 
skiy everything, because when he speaks of the Ill-treated and 
forgotten children of our town civilisation he becomes truly 
great through his wide, Infinite love of mankind — of man, 
even In his worst manifestations. Through his love of those 
drunkards, beggars, petty thieves and so on, whom we usually 
pass by without even bestowing upon them a pitying glance ; 
through his power of discovering what Is human and often 
great In the lowest sunken being ; through the love which he 
Inspires In us, even for the least Interesting types of mankind, 
even for those who never will make an effort to get out of the 
low and miserable position Into which life has thrown them 
— through this faculty Dostoyevskiy has certainly won a 
unique position among the writers of modern times, and he 
will be read — not for the artistic finish of his writings but for 
the good thoughts which are scattered through them, for 
their real reproduction of slum life In the great cities — and 
for the infinite sympathy which a being like Sonya can inspire 
In the reader. 

nekrAsoff 

With Nekrasoff we come to a poet whose work has been 
the subject of a lively controversy In Russian Literature. He 
was born in 1821 — his father being a poor army officer who 
married a Polish lady for love. This lady must have been 
most remarkable, because in his poems Nekrasoff continually 
refers to his mother in accents of love and respect, such as 
perhaps have no parallel in any other poet. His mother, how- 
ever, died very early, and their large family, which consisted 
of thirteen brothers and sisters, must have been in great 
straits. No sooner had Nicholas Nekrasoff, the future poet, 
attained his sixteenth year, than he left the provincial town 
where the family were staying and went to St. Petersburg, 



NEKRASOFF 171 

to enter the University, where he joined the philological 
department. Most Russian students live very poorly — mostly 
by lessons, or entering as tutors in families where they are 
paid very little, but have at least lodgings and food. But 
Nekrasofi experienced simply black misery: " For full three 
years,'' he said at a later period, " I felt continually hungry 
every day."** It often happened that I entered one of the great 
restaurants where people may go to read newspapers, even 
without ordering anything to eat, and while I read my paper 
I would draw the bread plate towards myself and eat the 
bread, and that was my only food." At last he fell ill, and 
during his convalescence the old soldier from whom he rented 
a tiny room, and to whom he had already run into debt, one 
cold November night refused to admit his lodger to his 
room. Nekrasoff would have had to spend the night out of 
doors, but a passing beggar took pity on him and took him to 
some slums on the outskirts of the town, to a " doss-house," 
where the young poet found also the possibility of earning 
fifteen farthings for some petition that he wrote for one of 
the inmates. Such was the youth of Nekrasoff; but during it 
he had the opportunity of making acquaintance with the 
poorest and lowest classes of St. Petersburg, and the love 
towards them which he acquired during these peregrinations 
he retained all his life. Later on, by means of relentless work, 
and by editing all sorts of almanacks, he improved his mate- 
rial conditions. He became a regular contributor to the 
chief review of the time, for which Turgueneff, Dostoyevskiy, 
Herzen, and all our best writers wrote, and in 1846 he even 
became the owner of this review. The Contemporary, which 
for the next fifteen years played so Important a part in 
Russian literature. In The Contemporary he came. In the 
sixties, into close contact and friendship with two remarkable 
men, Tchernyshevskly and Dobroluboff, and about this time 
he wrote his best verses. In 1875 he fell seriously ill, and the 
next two years his life was simply agony. He died In Decem- 
ber, 1877, and thousands of people, especially the University 
students, followed his body to the grave. 

Here, over his grave, began the passionate discussion which 
has never ended, about the merits of Nekrasoff as a poet. 
While speaking over his grave, Dostoyevskiy put Nekrasoff 



172 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

by the side of Pushkin and Lermontoff (" higher still than 
Pushkin and Lermontoff," exclaimed some young enthusiast 
in the crowd), and the question, "Is Nekrasoff a great 
poet, like Pushkin and Lermontoff? " has been discussed ever 
since. 

Nekrasoff's poetry played such an important part in my 
own development, during my youth, that I did not dare trust 
my own high appreciation of it; and therefore to verify and 
support my impressions and appreciations I have compared 
them with those of the Russian critics, Arsenieff, Skabitchev- 
skiy, and Vengueroff (the author of a great biographical 
dictionary of Russian authors). 

When we enter the period of adolescence, from sixteen 
years to twenty, we need to find words to express the 
aspirations and the higher Ideas which begin to wake up In 
our minds. It Is not enough to have these aspirations: we 
want words to express them. Some will find these words in 
those of the prayers which they hear In the church; others — 
and I belonged to their number — will not be satisfied with 
this expression of their feelings: It will strike them as too 
vague, and they will look for something else to express In 
more concrete terms their growing sympathies with mankind 
and the philosophical questions about the life of the universe 
which pre-occupy them. They will look for poetry. For me, 
Goethe on the one side, by his philosophical poetry, and 
Nekrasoff on the other, by the concrete Images In which he 
expressed his love of the peasant masses, supplied the words 
which the heart wanted for the expression of its poetical feel- 
ings. But this Is only a personal remark. The question Is, 
whether Nekrasoff can really be put by the side of Pushkin 
and Lermontoff as a great poet. 

Some people repudiate such a comparison. He was not a 
poet, they say, because he always wrote with a purpose. How- 
ever, this reasoning, which Is often defended by the pure 
aesthetics, Is evidently Incorrect. Shelley also had a purpose, 
which did not prevent him from being a great poet; Brown- 
ing has a purpose In a number of his poems, and this did not 
prevent him from being a great poet. Every great poet has a 
purpose in most of his poems, and the question Is only whether 
he has found a beautiful form for expressing this purpose, or 



NEKRASOFF 173 

not. The poet who shall succeed in combining a really beauti- 
ful form, /. e.^ impressive images and sonorous verses, with a 
grand purpose, will be the greatest poet. 

Now, one certainly feels, on reading Nekrasoff, that he 
had difficulty in writing his verses. There is nothing in his 
poetry similar to the easiness with which Pushkin used the 
forms of versification for expressing his thoughts, nor is there 
any approach to the musical harmony of Lermontoff's verse 
or A. K. Tolstoy's. Even in his best poems there are lines 
which are not agreeable to the ear on account of their wooden 
and clumsy form; but you feel that these unhappy verses 
could be improved by the change of a few words, without the 
beauty of the images In which the feelings are expressed 
being altered by that. One certainly feels that Nekrasoff was 
not master enough of his words and his rhymes; but there is 
not one single poetical Image which does not suit the whole 
idea of the poem, or which strikes the reader as a dissonance, 
or is not beautiful; while in some of his verses Nekrasoff has 
certainly succeeded in combining a very high degree of poeti- 
cal inspiration with great beauty of form. It must not be 
forgotten that the Yambs of Barbier, and the Chdtiments of 
Victor Hugo also leave^ here and there, much to be desired 
as regards form. 

Nekrasoff was a m.ost unequal writer, but one of the above- 
named critics has pointed out that even amidst his most 
unpoetical " poem " — the one in which he describes in very 
poor verses the printing office of a newspaper — the moment 
that he touches upon the sufferings of the worklngman there 
come in twelve lines which for the beauty of poetical images 
and musicalness, connected with their inner force, have few 
equals in the whole of Russian literature. 

When we estimate a poet, there is something general in his 
poetry which we either love or pass by Indifferently, and to 
reduce literary criticism exclusively to the analysis of the 
beauty of the poet's verses or to the correspondence between 
" idea and form " is surely to immensely reduce its value. 
Everyone will recognise that Tennyson possessed a wonderful 
beauty of form, and yet he cannot be considered as superior 
to Shelley, for the simple reason that the general tenor of 
the latter's ideas was so much superior to the general tenor 



174 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

of Tennyson's. It Is on the general contents of his poetry 
that Nekrasoff's superiority rests. 

We have had In Russia several poets who also wrote upon 
social subjects or the duties of a citizen — I need only mention 
Plescheeff and MInayeff — and they attained sometimes, from 
the versifier's point of view, a higher beauty of form than 
Nekrasoff. But In whatever Nekrasoff wrote there Is an Inner 
force which you do not find In either of these poets, and this 
force suggests to him images which are rightly considered as 
pearls of Russian poetry. 

Nekrasoff called his Muse, " A Muse of Vengeance and of 
Sadness," and this Muse, Indeed, never entered into com- 
promise with injustice. Nekrasoff is a pessimist, but his 
pessimism, as Vengueroff remarks, has an original character. 
Although his poetry contains so many depressing pictures rep- 
resenting the misery of the Russian masses, nevertheless the 
fundamental impression which it leaves upon the reader Is an 
elevating feeling. The poet does not bow his head before 
the sad reality: he enters Into a struggle with it, and he is 
sure of victory. The reading of Nekrasoff wakes up that dis- 
content which bears in itself the seeds of recovery. 

The mass of the Russian people, the peasants and their 
sufferings, are the main themes of our poet's verses. His love 
to the people passes as a red thread through all his works; 
he remained true to it all his life. In his younger years that 
love saved him from squandering his talent in the sort of life 
which so many of his contemporaries have led; later on it 
inspired him in his struggle against serfdom ; and when serf- 
dom was abolished he did not consider his work terminated, 
as so many of his friends did : he became the poet of the dark 
masses oppressed by the economical and political yoke; and 
towards the end of his life he did not say: " Well, I have 
done what I could," but till his last breath his verses were a 
complaint about not having been enough of a fighter. He 
wrote : " Struggle stood in the way of my becoming a poet, 
and songs prevented me from becoming a fighter," and again : 
" Only he who is serviceable to the aims of his time, and gives 
all his life to the struggle for his brother men — only he will 
live longer than his life." 

Sometimes he sounds a note of despair; however, such a 



NEKRAsOFF 175 

note Is not frequent in Nekrasoff. His Russian peasant is not 
a man who only sheds tears. He Is serene, sometimes humour- 
ous, and sometimes an extremely gay worker. Very seldom 
does Nekrasoff idealise the peasant: for the most part he 
takes him just as he is, from life itself; and the poet's faith in 
the forces of that Russian peasant is deep and vigorous. *' A 
little more freedom to breathe — he says — and Russia will 
shew that she has men, and that she has a future." This is an 
idea which frequently recurs in his poetry. 

The best poem of Nekrasoff is Red-nosed Frost. It Is the 
apotheosis of the Russian peasant woman. The poem has 
nothing sentimental in It. It Is written, on the contrary, in a 
sort of elevated epic style, and the second part, where Frost 
personified passes on his way through the wood, and where 
the peasant woman Is slowly freezing to death, while bright 
pictures of past happiness pass through her brain — all this 
Is admirable, even from the point of view of the most 
aesthetic critics, because It Is written In good verses and In a 
succession of beautiful Images and pictures. 

The Peasant Children Is a charming village idyll. The 
" Muse of Vengeance and Sadness " — one of our critics 
remarks — becomes wonderfully mild and gentle as soon as 
she begins to speak of women and children. In fact, none of 
the Russian poets has ever done so much for the apotheosis 
of women, and especially of the mother-woman, as this sup- 
posedly severe poet of Vengeance and Sadness. As soon as 
Nekrasoff begins to speak of a mother he grows powerful; 
and the strophes he devoted to his own mother — a woman 
lost in a squire's house, amidst men thinking only of hunting, 
drinking, and exercising their powers as slave owners in their 
full brutality — these strophes are real pearls In the poetry of 
all nations. 

His poem devoted to the exiles In Siberia and to the Rus- 
sian women — that Is, to the wives of the Decembrists — In 
exile. Is excellent and contains really beautiful passages, but it 
is Inferior to either his poems dealing with the peasants or to 
his pretty poem, Sasha, In which he describes, contemporane- 
ously with Turgueneff, the very same types as Rudin and 
Natasha. 

It Is quite true that Nekrasoff's verses often bear traces of 



176 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

a painful struggle with rhyme, and that there are lines in 
his poems which are decidedly inferior; but he is certainly 
one of our most popular poets amidst the massesof the people. 
Part of his poetry has already become the inheritance of all 
the Russian nation. He is immensely read — not only by the 
educated classes, but by the poorest peasants as well. In fact, 
as has been remarked by one of our critics, to under- 
stand Pushkin a certain more or less artificial literary develop- 
ment is required; while to understand Nekrasoff it is sufficient 
for the peasant simply to know reading; and it is difficult 
to Imagine, without having seen it, the delight with which 
Russian children In the poorest village schools are now read- 
ing Nekrasoff and learning full pages from his verses by 
heart. 

OTHER PROSE V^ITERS OF THE SAME EPOCH 

Having analysed the work of those writers who may be 
considered as the true founders of modern Russian literature, 
I ought now to review a number of prose-writers and poets 
of less renown, belonging to the same epoch. However, fol- 
lowing the plan of this book, only a few words will be said, 
and only some of the most remarkable among them will be 
mentioned. 

A writer of great power, quite unknown in Western 
Europe, who occupies a quite unique position In Russian 
literature. Is Serghei Timofeevitch AksAkoff (1791- 
1859), the father of the two Slavophile writers, Konstantin 
and Ivan Aksakoff. He is in reality a contemporary of Push- 
kin and Lermontoff, but during the first part of his career 
he displayed no originality whatever, and lingered in the 
fields of pseudo-classicism. It was only after Gogol had 
written — that is, after 1846 — that he struck a quite new vein, 
and attained the full development of his by no means ordi- 
nary talent. In the years 1 847-1 855 he published his Memoirs 
of Angling, Memoirs of a Hunter with his Fowling Piece in 
the Government of Orenburg, and Stories and Remembrances 
of a Sportsman; and these three works would have been suffi- 
cient to conquer for him the reputation of a first-rate writer. 
The Orenburg region, in the Southern Urals, was very thinly 



NEKRAsOFF 177 

Inhabited at that time, and its nature and physiognomy are so 
well described in these books that Aksakoff's work reminds 
one of the Natural History of Selbourne, It has the same 
accuracy; but Aksakoff is moreover a poet and a first-rate 
poetical landscape painter. Besides, he so admirably knew the 
life of the animals, and he so well understood them, that 
in this respect his rivals could only be Kryloff on the one 
hand, and Brehm the elder and Audubon among the natu- 
ralists. 

The influence of Gogol induced S. T. Aksakoff to entirely 
abandon the domain of pseudo-classical fiction. In 1846 
he began to describe real life, and the result was a large 
work, A Family Chronicle and Remembrances (1856), soon 
followed by The Early Years of Bagroff-the-Grandchild 
(1858), which put him in the first ranks among the writers 
of his century. Slavophile enthusiasts described him even 
as a Shakespeare, nay, as a Homer; but all exaggeration 
apart, S. T. Asksakoff has really succeeded not only in 
reproducing a whole epoch In his Memoirs, but also In 
creating real types of men of that time, which have served 
as models for all our subsequent writers. If the leading 
idea of these Memoirs had not been so much In favour 
of the " good old times " of serfdom, they would have 
been even much more widely read than they are now. 
The appearance of A Family Chronicle — in 1856 — 
was an event, and the marking of an epoch in Russian 
literature. 

V. Dal (1801-1872) cannot be omitted even from this 
short sketch. He was born in Southeastern Russia, of a 
Danish father and a Franco-German mother, and received 
his education at the Dorpat university. He was a naturalist 
and a doctor by profession, but his favourite study was 
ethnography, and he became a remarkable ethnographer, as 
well as one of the best connoisseurs of the Russian spoken 
language and Its provincial dialects. His sketches from the 
life of the people, signed Kozak Luganskiy (about a hun- 
dred of them are embodied In a volume. Pictures from 
Russian Life, 186 1), were very widely read In the forties 
and the fifties, and were highly praised by Turgueneff and 



178 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Byelinskiy. Although they are mere sketches and leaflets 
from a diary, without real poetical creation, they are delight- 
ful reading. As to the ethnographical work of Dal it was 
colossal. During his continual peregrinations over Russia, in 
his capacity of a military doctor attached to his regiment, he 
made most wonderful collections of words, expressions, 
riddles, proverbs, and so on, and embodied them in two large 
works. His main work is An Explanatory Dictionary of the 
Russian Language, in four quarto volumes (first edition in 
1 86 1-68, second in 1 880-1 882). This is really a monumental 
work and contains the first and very successful attempt at 
a lexicology of the Russian language, which, notwithstanding 
some occasional mistakes, is of the greatest value for the 
understanding and the etymology of the Russian tongue as 
it is spoken in different provinces. It contains at the same 
time a precious and extremely rich collection of linguistic 
material for future research, part of which would have been 
lost by now if Dal had not collected it, fifty years ago, before 
the advent of railways. Another great work of Dal, only 
second to the one just mentioned, is a collection of proverbs, 
entitled The Proverbs of the Russian People (second edition 
in 1879). 

A writer who occupies a prominent place in the evolution 
of the Russian novel, but has not yet been sufficiently appre- 
ciated, is Ivan Panaeff (18 12-1862), who was a great 
friend of all the literary circle of the Sovremennik (Contem- 
porary), Of this review he was co-editor with Nekrasoff, 
and he wrote for it a mass of literary notes and feuilletons 
upon all sorts of subjects, extremely interesting for charac- 
terising those times. In his novels Panaeff, like Turgueneff, 
took his types chiefly from the educated classes, both at St. 
Petersburg and in the provinces. His collection of " Swag- 
gerers " (hlyschi), both from the highest classes in the 
capitals, and from provincials, is not inferior to Thackeray's 
collection of " snobs." In fact, the " swaggerer," as Panaeff 
understood him. Is even a much broader and much more com- 
plicated type of man than the snob, and cannot easily be 
described In a few words. The greatest service rendered by 
Panaeff was, however, the creation in his novels of a series 
of such exquisite types of Russian women that they were 



NEKRAsOFF 179 

truly described by some critics as " the spiritual mothers of 
the heroines of Turgueneff." 

A. Herzen ( 1812-1870) also belongs to the same epoch, 
but he win be spoke of In a subsequent chapter. 

A very sympathetic woman writer, who belongs to the 
same group and deserves In reality much more than a brief 
notice, Is N. D. Hvoschinskaya (i 825-1 869; Zalonch- 
kovskaya after her marriage). She wrote under the mascu- 
line nom-de-plume of V. Krestovskiy, and In order not to 
confound her with a very prolific writer of novels In the 
style of the French detective novel — the author of St, Peters- 
burg Slums, whose name was Vsevolod Krestovskiy — she 
is usually known In Russia as " V. Krestovskiy-pseudonyme.'* 

N. D. Hvoschinskaya began to write very early, in 1847, 
and her novels were endowed with such an inner charm that 
they were always admired by the general public and were 
widely read. It must, however, be said that during the first 
part of her literary career the full value of her work was 
not appreciated, and that down to the end of the seventies 
literary criticism remained hostile to her. It was only towards 
the end of her career (in 1 878-1 880) that our best literary 
critics — Mlhallovskly, Arsenieff and the novelist Boborykin 
— recognised the full value of this writer, who certainly 
deserves being placed by the side of George Eliot and the 
author of Jane Eyre. 

N. D. Hvoschlnkskaya certainly was not one of those who 
conquer their reputation at once ; but the cause of the rather 
hostile attitude of Russian critics towards her was that, 
having been born in a poor nobleman's family of Ryazan, 
and having spent all her life in the province, her novels of 
the first period, in which she dealt with provincial life and 
provincial types only, suffered from a certain narrowness of 
view. This last defect was especially evident in those types 
of men for whom the young author tried to win sympathy, 
but who, after all, had no claims to it, and simply proved 
that the author felt the need of idealising somebody, at least, 
in her sad surroundings. 

Apart from this defect, N. D. Hvoschinskaya knew pro- 
vincial life very well and pictured It admirably. She repre- 
sented It exactly In the same pessimistic light in which 



i8o RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Turgueneff saw It In those same years — the last years of 
the reign of Nicholas I. She excelled especially In representing 
the sad and hopeless existence of the girl in most of the 
families of those times. 

In her own family she meets the bigoted tyranny of her 
mother and the " let-me-alone '* egotism of her father, and 
among her admirers she finds only a collection of good-for- 
nothings who cover their shallowness with empty, sonorous 
phrases. Every novel written by our author during this 
period contains the drama of a girl whose best self is crushed 
back in such surroundings, or it relates the still more heart- 
rending drama of an old maid compelled to live under the 
tyranny, the petty persecutions and the pin-prickings of her 
relations. 

When Russia entered into a better period, in the early 
sixties, the novels of N. D. Hvoschlnskaya also took a 
different, much more hopeful character, and among them 
The Great Bear (1870-71) is the most prominent. At the 
time of its appearance it produced quite a sensation amidst 
our youth, and It had upon them a deeper influence, in the 
very best sense of the word, than any other novel. The 
heroine, Katya, meets, in Verhovskiy, a man of the weakling 
type which we know from Turgueneff's Correspondence^ but 
dressed this time in the garb of a social reformer, prevented 
only by " circumstances " and " misfortunes " from accom- 
plishing greater things. Verhovskiy, whom Katya loves and 
who falls in love with her — so far, at least, as such men can 
fall in love — is admirably pictured. It is one of the best 
representatives in the already rich gallery of such types in 
Russian literature. It must be owned that there are in The 
Great Bear one or two characters which are not quite real, 
or, at least, are not correctly appreciated by the author (for 
instance, the old Bagryanskly) ; but we find also a fine col- 
lection of admirably painted characters; while. Katya stands 
higher, is more alive, and is more fully pictured, than Tur- 
gueneff's Natasha or even his Helen. She has had enough 
of all the talk about heroic deeds which " circumstances " 
prevent the would-be heroes from accomplishing, and she 
takes to a much smaller task: she becomes a loving school 
mistress In a village school, and undertakes to bring into the 



NEKRASOFF i8i 

village-darkness her higher Ideals and her hopes of a better 
future. The appearance of this novel, just at the time when 
that great movement of the youth *' towards the people " 
was beginning In Russia, made It favourite reading by the 
side of Mordovtseff's Signs of the Times, and Splelhagen's 
Amboss iind Hammer and /;/ Reih und Glied. The warm 
tone of the novel and the refined, deeply humane, poetical 
touches of which It Is full — all these added Immensely to 
the Inner merits of The Great Bear. In Russia It has sown 
many a good Idea, and there Is no doubt that If It were known 
in Western Europe, It would be, here as well, a favourite 
with the thinking and well Inspired young women and men. 

A third period may be distinguished In the art of N. 
Hvoschlnskaya, after the end of the seventies. The novels 
of this period — among which the series entitled The Album: 
Groups and Portraits Is the most striking — have a new char- 
acter. When the great liberal movement which Russia had 
lived through In the early sixties came to an end, and 
reaction had got the upper hand, after 1864, hundreds and 
hundreds of those who had been prominent In this movement 
as representatives of advanced thought and reform aban- 
doned the faith and the Ideals of their best years. Under a 
thousand various pretexts they now tried to persuade them- 
selves — and, of course, those women who had trusted them — 
that new times had come, and new requirements had grown 
up; that they had only become "practical" when they 
deserted the old banner and ranged themselves under a new 
one — that of personal enrichment; that to do this was on 
their part a necessary self-sacrifice, a manifestation of '* virile 
citizenship," which requires from every man that he should 
not stop even before the sacrifice of his ideals in the interest 
of his " cause." " V. Krestovskiy," as a woman who had 
loved the Ideals, understood better than any man the real 
sense of these sophisms. She must have bitterly suffered from 
them In her personal life ; and I doubt whether in any litera- 
ture there is a collection of such " groups and portraits " of 
deserters as we see in The Album, and especially in At the 
Photographer^ s. In reading these stories we are conscious of 
a loving heart which bleeds as it describes these deserters, 
and this makes of " The groups and portraits " of N. D. 



1 82 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Hvoschlnskaya one of the finest pieces of " subjective 
realism " we possess in our literature. 

Two sisters of N. D. Hvoschinskaya, who wrote under 
the nomS'de-plume of ZiMAROFF and Vesenieff, were also 
novelists. The former wrote a biography of her sister 
Nathalie. 



POETS OF THE SAME EPOCH 

Several poets of the epoch described In the last two 
chapters ought to be analysed at some length in this place, 
If this book pretended to be a Course in Russian literature. 
I shall have, however, to limit myself to very short notes, 
although most of the poets could not have failed to be 
favourites with other nations if they had written In a 
language better known abroad than Russian. 

Such was certainly Koltsoff (1808-1842), a poet from 
the people, who has sung in his songs, so deeply appealing 
to every poetical mind, the borderless steppes of Southern 
Russia, the poor life of the tiller of the soil, the sad existence 
of the Russian peasant woman, that love which is for the 
loving soul only a source of acute suffering, that fate which 
Is not a mother but a step-mother, and that happiness which 
has been so short and has left behind only tears and sadness. 

The style, the contents, the form — all was original in this 
poet of the Steppes. Even the form of his verse is not the 
form established in Russian prosody: it Is something as 
musical as the Russian folk-song and in places is equally 
Irregular. However, every line of the poetry of the Koltsoff 
of his second period — when he had freed himself from 
imitation and had become a true poet of the people — every 
expression and every thought appeal to the heart and fill It 
with poetical love for nature and men. Like all the best Rus- 
sian poets he died very young, just at the age when he was 
reaching the full maturity of his talent and deeper questions 
were beginning to inspire his poetry. 

NiKiTiN ( 1 824-1 861 ) was another poet of a similar type. 
He was born in a poor artisan's family, also in South Russia. 
His life In this family, of which the head was continually 
under the Influence of drink, and which the young man had 



NEKRASOFF 183 

to maintain, was terrible. He also died young, but he left 
some very fine and most touching pieces of poetry, In which, 
with a simplicity that we shall find only with the later folk- 
novelists, he described scenes from popular life, coloured 
with the deep sadness impressed upon him by his own 
unhappy life. 

A. Plescheeff (1825-1893) has been for the last thirty 
years of his life one of the favourite Russian poets. Like so 
many other gifted men of his generation, he was arrested 
in 1849 ^^ connection with the affair of the " Petrashevskiy 
circles," for which Dostoyevskiy was sent to hard labour. He 
was found even less " guilty " than the great novelist, and 
was marched as a soldier to the Orenburg region, where he 
probably would have died a soldier, if Nicholas I. had not 
himself died in 1856. He was pardoned by Alexander II., 
and permitted to settle at Moscow. 

Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Plescheeff never let 
himself be crushed by persecution, or by the dark years which 
Russia has lately lived through. On the contrary, he always 
retained that same note of vigour, freshness, and faith In his 
humanitarian though perhaps too abstract ideals, which char- 
acterised his first poetical productions In the forties. Only 
towards his very latest years, under the Influence of Ill-health, 
did a pessimistic note begin to creep Into his verses. Besides 
writing original poetry he translated very much, and admira- 
bly well, from the German, English, French and Italian 
poets. 

Besides these three poets, who sought their inspiration 
in the realities of life or in higher humanitarian ideals, we 
have a group of poets who are usually described as admirers 
of " pure beauty " and " Art for Art's sake." Th. Tyut- 
CHEFF ( 1 803-1 873) may be taken as the best, or, at any 
rate, the eldest representative of this group. Turgueneff 
spoke of him very highly — in 1854 — praising his fine and 
true feeling for nature and his fine taste. The influence of the 
epoch of Pushkin upon him was evident, and he certainly was 
endowed with the impressionability and sincerity which are 
necessary in a good poet. With all that, his verses are not 
much read, and seem rather dull to our generation. 



1 84 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Apollon Maykoff ( 1 821-1897) is often described as 
a poet of pure art for art's sake; at any rate, this Is what 
he preached in theory; but In reality his poetry belonged to 
four distinct domains. In his youth he was a pure admirer 
of antique Greece and Rome, and his chief work, Two 
Worlds y was devoted to the conflict between antique paganism 
and natureism and Christianity — the best types In his poem 
being representatives of the former. Later on he wrote 
several very good pieces of poetry devoted to the history 
of the Church In mediaeval times. Still later. In the sixties, 
he was carried away by the liberal movement In Russia and 
In Western Europe, and his poems were Imbued with Its spirit 
of freedom. He wrote during those years his best poems, and 
made numbers of excellent translations from Heine. And 
finally, after the liberal period had come to an end In Russia, 
he also changed his opinions and began to write In the 
opposite direction, losing more and more both the sympathy 
of his readers and his talent. Apart from some of the pro- 
ductions of this last period of decay, the verses of Maykofi 
are as a rule very musical, really poetical, and not devoid 
of force. In his earlier productions and In some pieces of 
his third period, he attained real beauty. 

N. ScHERBiNA (1821-1869), also an admirer of classical 
Greece, may be mentioned for his really good anthologlcal 
poetry from the life of Greek antiquity. In which he even 
excelled Maykoff. 

PoLONSKiY (1820-1898), a contemporary and a great 
friend of Turgueneff, displayed all the elements of a great 
artist. His verses are full of true melody, his poetical Images 
are rich, and yet natural and simple, and the subjects he took 
were not devoid of originality. This Is why his verses were 
always read with Interest. But he had none of that force, or 
of that depth of conception, or of that Intensity of passion 
which might have made of him a great poet. His best piece, 
A Musical Cricket, Is written In a jocose mood, and his most 
popular verses are those which he wrote In the style of folk- 
poetry. One may say that they have become the property of 
the people. Altogether Polonskly appealed chiefly to the 
quiet, moderate *^ Intellectual " who does not much care about 
going to the bottom of the great problems of life. If he 



NEKRASOFF 185 

touched upon some of these, It was owing to a passing, rather 
than to a life Interest In them. 

One more poet of this group, perhaps the most character- 
istic of It, was A. Shenshin (i 820-1 892), much better 
known under his nom-de-plume of A. Fet. He remained all 
his life a poet of '' pure art for art's sake." He wrote a 
good deal about economical and social matters, always in 
the reactionary sense, but — In prose. As to verses, he never 
resorted to them for anything but the worship of beauty 
for beauty's sake. In this direction he succeeded very well. 
His short verses are especially pretty and sometimes almost 
beautiful. Nature, In Its quiet, lovely aspects, which lead to 
a gentle, aimless sadness, he depicted sometimes to perfection, 
as also those moods of the mind which can be best described 
as indefinite sensations, slightly erotic. However, taken as a 
whole, his poetry appears monotonous. 

To the same group one might add A. K. ToLSTOY, whose 
verses attain sometimes a rare perfection and sound like the 
best music. The feelings expressed in them may not be very 
deep, but the form and the music of the verses are delightful. 
They have, moreover, the stamp of originality, because 
nobody could write poems in the style of Russian folk-poetry 
better than Alexei Tolstoy. Theoretically, he preached art 
for art's sake. But he never remained true to this canon and, 
taking either the life of old epical Russia, or the period of 
the struggle between the Moscow Tsars and the feudal 
boyars, he developed his admiration of the olden times In 
very beautiful verses. He also wrote a novel. Prince Sere- 
bryanyi, from the times of John the Terrible, which was very 
widely read; but his main work was a trilogy of dramas from 
the same interesting period of Russian history (see Ch. VI). 

Almost all the poets just mentioned have translated a great 
deal, and they have enriched Russian literature with such a 
number of translations from all languages — so admirably 
done as a rule — that no other literature of the world, not 
even the German, can claim to possess an equally great 
treasury. Some translations, beginning with Zhukovskiy's 
rendering of the Prisoner of Chillon, or the translations of 
Hiawatha, are simply classical. All Schiller, most of Goethe, 



1 86 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

nearly all Byron, a great deal of Shelley, all that is worth 
knowing In Tennyson, Wordsworth, Crabbe, all that could 
be translated from Browning, Barbler, Victor Hugo, and so 
on, are as familiar in Russia as in the mother countries of 
these poets, and occasionally even more so. As to such 
favourites as Heine, I really don't know whether his best 
poems lose anything In those splendid translations which we 
owe to our best poets; while the songs of Beranger, in the 
free translation of Kurotchkin, are not in the least inferior to 
the originals. 

We have moreover some excellent poets who are chiefly 
known for their translations. Such are: N. Gerbel (1827- 
1883), who made his reputation by an admirable rendering 
of the Lay of Igor's Raid (see Ch. I.) , and later on, by his 
versions of a great number of West European poets. His 
edition of Schiller, translated by Russian Poets (1857), fol- 
lowed by similar editions of Shakespeare, Byron, and Goethe, 
was epoch making. 

Mikhail Mikhailoff (i 826-1 865), one of the most 
brilliant writers of the Contemporary, condemned in 1861 
to hard labour In Siberia, where he died four years later, was 
especially renowned for his translations from Heine, as also 
for those from Longfellow, Hood, Tennyson, Lenan, and 
others. 

P. Weinberg (born 1830) made his reputation by his 
excellent translations from Shakespeare, Byron {Sardana- 
pal), Shelley (Cenci)^ Sheridan, Coppe, Gutzkow, Heine, 
etc., and for his editions of the work of Goethe and Heine 
in Russian translations. He still continues to enrich Russian 
literature with excellent versions of the masterpieces of for- 
eign literatures. 

L. Mey ( 1 822-1 862), the author of a number of poems 
from popular life, written in a very picturesque language, and 
of several dramas, of which those from old Russian life are 
especially valuable and were taken by Rimskiy Korsakoff 
as the subjects of his operas, has also made a great number of 
translations. He translated not only from the modern West 
European poets — English, French, German, Italian, and 
Polish — but also from Greek, Latin, and Old Hebrew, all 
of which languages he knew to perfection. Besides excellent 



NEKRXsOFF 187 

translations of Anacreon and the Idylls of Theocritus, he 
wrote also beautiful poetical versions of the Song of Songs 
and of various other portions of the Bible. 

D. MiNAYEFF (183 5- 1 8 89), the author of a great num- 
ber of satirical verses, also belongs to this group of trans- 
lators. His renderings from Byron, Burns, Cornwall, and 
Moore, Goethe and Heine, Leopard!, Dante, and several 
others, were, as a rule, extremely fine. 

And finally I must mention one, at least, of the prose- 
translators, VvEDENSKiY (1813-1855), for his very fine 
translations of the chief novels of Dickens. His renderings 
are real works of art, the result of a perfect knowledge of 
English life, and of such a deep assimilation of the genius of 
Dickens that the translator almost identified himself with the 
original author. 



PART VI 
The Drama 



CHAPTER VI 

THE DRAMA 

ITS Origin — ^The Tsars Alexei and Peter I. — Sumarolcoff — Pseudo- 
classical Tragedies: Knyazhnin, Ozeroff — First Comedies — ^The 
First Years of the Nineteenth Century — Griboyedoff — The 
Moscow Stage in the Fifties — Ostrovskiy; his first Dramas — 
" The Thunderstorm " — Ostrovskiy's later Dramas — Historical 
Dramas : A. K. Tolstoy — Other Dramatic Writers. 

THE Drama in Russia, as everywhere else, had a 
double origin. It developed out of the religious 
" mysteries " on the one hand and the popular 
comedy on the other, witty interludes being Introduced 
into the grave, moral representations, the subjects of which 
were borrowed from the Old or the New Testament. 
Several such mysteries were adapted In the seventeenth cen- 
tury by the teachers of the Graeco-Latin Theological Acad- 
emy at Kleff for representation in Little Russian by the 
students of the Academy, and later on these adaptations 
found their way to Moscow. 

Towards the end of the seventeenth century — on the eve, 
so to speak, of the reforms of Peter I. — a strong desire to 
Introduce Western habits of life was felt In certain small 
circles at Moscow, and the father of Peter, the Tsar Alexis, 
was not hostile to It. He took a liking to theatrical representa- 
tions, and Induced some foreigners residing at Moscow to 
write pieces for representation at the palace. A certain Gre- 
gory undertook this task and, taking German versions of 
plays, which used to be called at that time " English Plays," 
he adapted them to Russian tastes. The Comedy of Queen 
Esther and the Haughty Hainan, Tobias, Judith, etc., were 
represented before the Tsar. A high functionary of the 
Church, Simeon Polotskiy, did not disdain to write such 
mysteries, and several of them have come down to us ; while 

191 



192 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

a daughter of Alexis, the princess Sophie (a pupil of 
Simeon), breaking with the strict habits of Isolation which 
were then obligatory for women, had theatrical representa- 
tions given at the palace In her presence. 

This was too much for the old Moscow Conservatives, and 
after the death of Alexis the theatre was closed; and so It 
remained a quarter of a century, i. e., until 1702, when Peter 
I., who was very fond of the drama, opened a theatre In the 
old capital. He had a company of actors brought for the 
purpose from Dantslg, and a special house was built for them 
within the holy precints of the Kremlin. More than that, 
another sister of Peter I., Nathalie, who was as fond of 
dramatic performances as the great reformer himself, a few 
years later took all the properties of this theatre to her own 
palace, and had the representations given there — first in 
German, and later on In Russian. It is also very probable that 
she herself wrote a few dramas — perhaps in collaboration 
with one of the pupils of a certain Doctor Bldlo, who had 
opened another theatre at the Moscow Hospital, the actors 
being the students. Later on the theatre of Princess Nathalie 
was transferred to the new capital founded by her brother on 
the Neva. 

The repertoire of this theatre was pretty varied, and 
included, besides German dramas, like Scipio the African, 
Don Juan and Don Pedro, and the like, free translations 
from Mollere, as also German farces of a very rough char- 
acter. There were, besides a few original Russian dramas 
(partly contributed, apparently, by Nathalie), which were 
compositions drawn from the lives of the Saints, and from 
some Polish novels, widely read at that time in Russian 
manuscript translations. 

It was out of these elements and out of West European 
models that the Russian drama evolved, when the theatre 
became, in the middle of the eighteenth century, a permanent 
institution. It is most interesting to note, that It was not In 
either of the capitals, but in a provincial town, Yaroslav, 
under the patronage of the local tradesmen, that the first 
permanent Russian theatre was founded, in 1750, and also 
that it was by the private enterprise of a few actors : the two 
brothers Volkoff, Dmitrevsky, and several others. The Em- 



THE DRAMA 193 

press Elisabeth — probably following the advice of Sumaro- 
koff, who himself began about that time to write dramas — 
ordered these actors to move to St. Petersburg, where they 
became '' artists of the Imperial Theatre," in the service of 
the Crown. Thus, the Russian theatre became, In 1756, an 
institution of the Government. 

SuMAROKOFF (1718-1777), who wrote, besides verses 
and fables (the latter of real value), a considerable number 
of tragedies and comedies, played an Important part in the 
development of the Russian drama. In his tragedies he Imi- 
tated Racine and Voltaire. He followed strictly their rules of 
" unity," and cared even less than they did for historical 
truth; but as he had not the great talent of his French 
masters, he made of his heroes mere personifications of cer- 
tain virtues or vices, figures quite devoid of life, and Indulging 
In endless pompous monologues. Several of his tragedies 
{Horev, written In 1747, Sindv and Truvor, Yaropolk and 
Dilitza, Dmitri the Impostor) were taken from Russian his- 
tory; but after all their heroes were as little Slavonian 
as Racine's heroes were Greek and Roman. This, however, 
must be said In favour of Sumarokoff, that he never failed 
to express in his tragedies the more advanced humanitarian 
Ideas of the times — sometimes with real feeling, which 
pierced through even the conventional forms of speech of his 
heroes. As to his comedies, although they had not the same 
success as his serious dramas, they were much nearer to life. 
They contained touches of the real life of Russia, especially 
of the life of the Moscow nobility, and their satirical char- 
acter undoubtedly influenced Sumarokoff's followers. 

Knyazhnin (1742- 1 791) followed on the same lines. 
Like Sumarokoff he translated tragedies from the French, 
and also wrote Imitations of French tragedies, taking his sub- 
jects partly from Russian history (Rossldv, 1784; Vadim of 
Novgorod, which was printed after his death and was 
Immediately destroyed by the Government on account of its 
tendencies towards freedom). 

OzEROFF (1769-18 16) continued the work of Knyazh- 
nin, but introduced the sentimental and the romantic 
elements Into his pseudo-classical tragedies {Oedipus in 
Athens, Death of Oleg). With all their defects these 



194 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

tragedies enjoyed a lasting success, and powerfully contrib- 
uted to the development of both the stage and a public of 
serious playgoers. 

At the same time comedies also began to be written by the 
same authors ( The Brawler, Strange People, by Knyazhnin) 
and their followers, and although they were for the most part 
imitations of the French, nevertheless subjects taken from 
Russian everyday life began to be introduced. Sumarokoff 
had already done something in this direction, and he had been 
seconded by Catherine II., who contributed a couple of 
satirical comedies, taken from her surroundings, such as The 
Fete of Mrs. Grumbler, and a comic opera from Russian 
popular life. She was perhaps the first to introduce Russian 
peasants on the stage; and It Is worthy of note that the taste 
for a popular vein on the stage rapidly developed — the 
comedies, The Miller by Ablesimoff, Zbitenshik {The 
Hawker) , by Knyazhnin, and so on, all taken from the life 
of the people, being for some time great favourites with the 
playgoers. 

VoN-WiziN has already been mentioned In a previous 
chapter, and It is sufficient here to recall the fact, that by 
his two comedies, The Brigadier (1768) and Nedorosl 
(1782), which continued to be played up to the middle of 
the nineteenth century he became the father of the realistic 
satirical comedy In Russia. Denunciation (Ydbeda)^ by Kap- 
NIST, and a few comedies contributed by the great fable- 
writer Kryloff belong to the same category. 

THE FIRST years OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

During the first thirty years of the nineteenth century the 
Russian theatre developed remarkably. The stage produced, 
at St. Petersburg and at Moscow, a number of gifted and 
original actors and actresses, both In tragedy and In 
comedy. The number of writers for the stage became so 
considerable that all the forms of dramatic art were able to 
develop at the same time. During the Napoleonic wars 
patriotic tragedies, full of allusions to current events, such as 
Dmitri Donskoi (1807), by Ozeroff, Invaded the stage. 
However, the pseudo-classical tragedy continued to hold its 



THE DRAMA 195 

own. Better translations and Imitations of Racine were pro- 
duced (Katenin, Kokoshkin) and enjoyed a certain 
success, especially at St. Petersburg, owing to good tragic 
actors of the declamatory school. At the same time transla- 
tions of KoTZEBUE had an enormous success, as also the Rus- 
sian productions of his sentimental Imitators. 

Romanticism and pseudo-classlcalism were, of course, at 
war with each other for the possession of the stage, as they 
were In the domains of poetry and the novel; but, owing to 
the spirit of the time, and patronised as It was by Karamzin 
and Zhukovskiy, romanticism triumphed. It was aided 
especially by the energetic efforts of Prince Shahovskoy, 
who wrote, with a good knowledge of the stage, more than a 
hundred varied pieces — tragedies, comedies, operas, vaude- 
villes and ballets — taking the subjects for his dramas from 
Walter Scott, Osslan, Shakespeare, and Pushkin. At the same 
comedy, and especially satirical comedy, as also the vaudeville 
(which approached comedy by a rather more careful treat- 
ment of characters than is usual in that sort of literature on 
the French stage), were represented by a very great number 
of more or less original productions. Besides the excellent 
translations of Hmelnitzkiy from Moliere, the public en- 
joyed also the pieces of Zagoskin, full of good-hearted 
merriment, the sometimes brilliant and always animated 
comedies and vaudevilles of Shahovskoy, the vaudevilles of 
A. I. PisAREFF, and so on. True, all the comedies were either 
directly inspired by Moliere or were adaptations from the 
French into which Russian characters and Russian manners 
had been Introduced. But as there was still some original 
creation in these adaptions, which was carried a step 
further on the stage by gifted actors of the natural, realist 
school, it all prepared the way for the truly Russian comedy, 
which found its embodiment in Griboyedoff, Gogol and 
Ostrovskiy. 



196 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

GRIBOYEDOFF. 

Griboyedoff (1795-1829) died very young, and all that 
he left was one comedy, Misfortune from Intelligence {Gore 
at Umd) , and a couple of scenes from an unfinished tragedy 
in the Shakespearean style. However, the comedy Is a work 
of genius, and owing to It alone, Griboyedoff may be de- 
scribed as having done for the Russian stage what Pushkin 
has done for Russian poetry. 

Griboyedoff was born at Moscow, and received a good 
education at home before he entered the Moscow University, 
at the age of fifteen. Here he was fortunate enough to fall 
under the Influence of the historian Schlotzer and Professor 
Buhle, who developed In him the desire for a thorough ac- 
quaintance with the world-literature, together with habits of 
serious work. It was consequently during his stay at the 
University (1810-1812) that Griboyedoff wrote the first 
sketch of his comedy, at which he worked for the next twelve 
years. 

In 18 12, during the invasion of Napoleon, he entered the 
military service, and for four years remained an officer of the 
hussars, chiefly in Western Russia. The spirit of the army was 
quite different then from what it became later on, under 
Nicholas I. : it was In the army that the " Decembrists " made 
their chief propaganda, and Griboyedoff met among his 
comrades men of high humanitarian tendencies. In 18 16 he 
left the military service, and, obeying the desire of his 
mother, entered the diplomatic service at St. Petersburg, 
where he became friendly with the " Decembrists" Tchaa- 
daeff (see Ch. VIII.), Ryleeff, and Odoevskiy (see Ch. 
I. and 11.) . 

A duel, in which Griboyedoff took part as a second, was 
the cause of the future dramatist's removal from St. Peters- 
burg. His mother Insisted upon his being sent as far as pos- 
sible from the capital, and he was accordingly despatched to 
Teheran. He travelled a good deal in Persia, and, with his 
wonderful activity and liveliness, took a prominent part in the 
diplomatic work of the Russian Embassy. Later on, staying at 
Tiflis, and acting as a secretary to the Lieutenant of the 
Caucasus, he worked hard in the same diplomatic domain; 



THE DRAMA 197 

but he worked also all the time at his comedy, and In 1824 he 
finished it, while he was for a few months in Central Russia. 
Owing to a mere accident the manuscript of Misfortune from 
Ititelligence became known to a few friends, and the comedy 
produced a tremendous sensation among them. In a few 
months it was being widely read in manuscript copies, raising 
storms of indignation amongst the old generation, and pro- 
voking the greatest admiration among the young. All efforts, 
however, to obtain its production on the stage, or even to have 
it represented once in private, were thwarted by censorship, 
and Griboyedoff returned to the Caucasus without having 
seen his comedy played at a theatre. 

There, at Tiflis, he was arrested a few days after the 14th 
of December, 1825 (see Ch. I.), and taken in all speed to the 
St. Petersburg fortress, where his best friends were already 
imprisoned. It Is said In the Memoirs of one of the Decem- 
brists that even In the gloomy surroundings of the fortress 
the habitual brightness of Griboyedoff did not leave him. He 
used to tell his unfortunate friends such amusing stories by 
means of taps on the walls that they rolled on their beds, 
laughing like children. 

In June, 1826, he was set free, and sent back to TIflis. But 
after the execution of some of his friends — Ryleeff was 
among them — and the harsh sentence to hard labour for life 
in Siberian mines, which was passed upon all the others, his 
old gaiety was gone forever. 

At TIflis he w^orked harder than ever at spreading seeds 
of a better civilisation In the newly conquered territory; but 
next year he had to take part In the war of 1 827-1 828 against 
Persia, accompanying the army as a diplomatic agent, and 
after a crushing defeat of the Shah, Abbas-mirza, it was he 
who concluded the well-known Turkmanchal treaty, by which 
Russia obtained rich provinces from Persia and gained such 
an Influence over her inner affairs. After a flying visit to St. 
Petersburg, Griboyedoff was sent once more to Teheran — 
this time as an ambassador. Before leaving, he married at 
TIflis a Georgian princess of remarkable beauty, but he felt, 
as he left the Caucasus for Persia, that his chances of return- 
ing alive were few: " Abbas Miraz," he wrote, " will never 
pardon me the Turkmanchai treaty" — and so it happened. A 



198 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

few months after his arrival at Teheran a crowd of Persians 
fell upon the Russian embassy, and Griboyedoff was killed. 

For the last few years of his life, Griboyedoff had not 
much time nor taste for literary work. He knew that nothing 
he desired to write could ever see the light. Even Misfortune 
from Intelligence had been so mutilated by censorship that 
many of Its best passages had lost all sense. He wrote, how- 
ever, a tragedy In the romantic style, A Georgian Night, and 
those of his friends who had read It In full rated extremely 
high Its poetic and dramatic qualities; but only two scenes 
from this tragedy and the outline of its contents have reached 
us. The manuscript was lost — perhaps at Teheran. 

Misfortune from Intelligence Is a most powerful satire, 
directed against the high society of Moscow in the years 
1 820-1 830. Griboyedoff knew this society from the inside, 
and his types are not invented. Real men gave him the 
foundations for such immortal types as Famusoff, the aged 
nobleman, and Skalozub, the fanatic of militarism, as well as 
for all the secondary personages. As to the language in which 
Griboyedoff's personages speak, it has often been remarked 
that up to his time only three writers had been such great 
masters of the truly Russian spoken language : Pushkin, Kry- 
loff, and Griboyedoff. Later on, Ostrovskiy could be added to 
these three. It is the true language of Moscov/. Besides, the 
comedy is full of verses so strikingly satirical and so well said, 
that scores of them became proverbs known all over Russia. 

The idea of the comedy must have been suggested by 
Moliere's Misanthrope, and the hero, Tchatskiy, has cer- 
tainly much in common with Alceste. But Tchatskiy is, at the 
same time, so much Griboyedoff himself, and his cutting 
sarcasms are so much the sarcasms which Griboyedoff must 
have launched against his Moscow acquaintances, while all 
the other persons of the comedy are so truly Moscow people 
— so exclusively Moscow nobles — that apart from its leading 
motive, the comedy is entirely original and most thoroughly 
Russian. 

Tchatskiy is a young man who returns from a long jour- 
ney abroad, and hastens to the house of an old gentleman, 
Famusoff, whose daughter, Sophie, was his playmate in child- 
hood, and is loved by him now. However, the object of his 



THE DRAMA 199 

vows has meanwhile made the accquaintance of her father's 
secretary — a most insignificant and repulsive young man, 
Moltchalin, whose rules of life are: First, " moderation and 
punctuality," and next, to please everyone in the house of his 
superiors, down to the gatekeeper and his dog, " that even 
the dog may be kind to me." Following his rules, Moltchahn 
courts at the same time the daughter of his principal and her 
maid : the former, to make himself agreeable in his master's 
house, and the latter, because she pleases him. Tchatskiy is 
received in a very cold way. Sophie is afraid of his intelligence 
and his sarcasm, and her father has already found a partner 
for her in Colonel Skalozub — a military man full six feet 
high in his socks, who speaks in a deep bass voice, exclusively 
about military matters, but has a fortune and will soon be 
a general. 

Tchatskiy behaves just as an enamoured young man would 
do. He sees nothing but Sophie, whom he pursues with his 
adoration, making in her presence stinging remarks about 
Moltchalin, and bringing her father to despair by his free 
criticism of Moscow manners — the cruelty of the old serf- 
owners, the platitudes of the old courtiers, and so on; and as 
a climax, at a ball, which Famusoff gives that night, he in- 
dulges in long monologues against the adoration of the Mos- 
cow ladies for everything French. Sophie, in the meantime, 
offended by his remarks about Moltchalin, retaliates by set- 
ting afloat the rumour that Tchatskiy is not quite right in his 
mind, a rumour which is taken up with delight by Society at 
the ball, and spreads like wildfire. 

It has often been said in Russia that the satirical remarks 
of Tchatskiy at the ball, being directed against such a trifling 
matter as the adoration of foreigners, are rather superficial 
and irrelevant. But it Is more than probable that Griboyedoff 
limited himself to such innocent remarks because he knew 
that no others would be tolerated by the censorship ; he must 
have hoped that these, at least, would not be wiped out by the 
censor's red ink. From what Tchatskiy says during his morn- 
ing call in Famusoff's study, and from what is dropped by 
other personages, it Is evident that Griboyedoff had far more 
serious criticisms to put into his hero's mouth. 

Altogther, a Russian satirical writer is necessarily placed 



200 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

under a serious disadvantage with foreigners. When Moliere 
gives a satirical description of Parisian society this satire is 
not strange to the readers of other nations: we all know 
something about life in Paris; but when Griboyedoff describes 
Moscow society in the same satirical vein, and reproduces in 
such an admirable way purely Moscow types — not even 
typical Russians, but Moscow types (" On all the Moscow 
people," he says, " there is a special stamp '') — they are so 
strange to the Western mind that the translator ought to 
be half-Russian himself, and a poet, in order to render 
Griboyedoff's comedy in another language. If such a trans- 
lation were made, I am sure that this comedy would become 
a favourite on the stages of Western Europe. In Russia it 
has been played over and over again up to the present time, 
and although it is now seventy years old, it has lost nothing of 
its interest and attractiveness. 



THE MOSCOW STAGE. 

In the forties of the nineteenth century the theatre was 
treated everywhere with great respect — and more than any- 
where else was this the case in Russia. Italian opera had not 
yet reached the development it attained at St. Petersburg 
some twenty years later, and Russian opera, represented by 
poor singers, and treated as a step-daughter by the directors 
of the Imperial Theatres, offered but little attraction. It was 
the drama and occasionally the ballet, when some star like 
Fanny Elsler appeared on the horizon, which brought to- 
gether the best elements of educated society and aroused the 
youth of all classes, including the university students. The 
dramatic stage was looked upon — to speak in the style of 
those years — as " a temple of Art," a centre of far-reaching 
educational influence. As to the actors and actresses, they 
endeavoured, in their turn, not merely to render on the stage 
the characters created by the dramatist; they did their best to 
contribute themselves, like Cruickshank in his illustrations 
of Dickens's novels, to the final creation of the character, by 
finding its true personification. 

Especially at Moscow did this intellectual intercourse be- 
tween the stage and society go on, and a superior conception 



THE DRAMA 201 

of dramatic art was there developed. The Intercourse which 
Gogol established with the actors who played his Inspector- 
General, and especially with ScHEPKiN; the Influence of the 
literary and philosophical circles which had then their seat at 
Moscow; and the Intelligent appreciation and criticism of 
their work which the actors found In the Press — all this con- 
curred In making of the Moscow Malyl Teatr (Small 
Theatre) the cradle of a superior dramatic art. While St. 
Petersburg patronised the so-called " French " school of act- 
ing — declamatory and unnaturally refined — the Moscow 
stage attained a high degree of perfection In the develop- 
ment of the naturalistic school. I mean the school of which 
Duse is now such a great representative, and to which Lena 
Ashwell owed her great success In Resurrection; that is, the 
school in which the actor parts with the routine of conven- 
tional stage tradition, and provokes the deepest emotions in 
his audience by the depth of his own real feeling and by the 
natural truth and simplicity of its expression — the school 
which occupies the same position on the stage that the realism 
of Turgueneff and Tolstoy occupies in literature. 

In the forties and the early fifties this school had attained 
its highest perfection at Moscow, and had in its ranks such 
first-class actors and actresses as Schepkin — the real soul of 
this stage — MotchAloff, Sadoskiy, S. Vasilieff, and 
Mme. NiKULiNA-KossixsKAYA, Supported by quite a pleiad 
of good secondary aids. Their repertoire was not very rich; 
but the two comedies of Gogol {Inspector-General and Mar- 
riage)^ occasionally Griboyedoff's great satire ;^a comedy, 
The Marriage of Kretchtnsky, by Sukhovo-Kobylin, which 
gave excellent opportunities for displaying the best qualities 
of the artists just named; now and then a drama of Shake- 
speare,* plenty of melodramas adapted from the French, and 
vaudevilles which came nearer to light comedy than to iFarce 
— this was the ever varied programme of the Small Theatre. 
Some plays were played to perfection — combining the 
ensemble and the " go '^ which characterise the Odeon with 
the simplicity and naturalness already mentioned. 

* Shakespeare has always been a great favourite in Russia, but his 
dramas require a certain wealth of scenery not always at the disposal 
of the Small Theatre. 



202 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

The mutual Influence which the stage and dramatic authors 
necessarily exercise upon each other was admirably illus- 
trated at Moscow. Several dramatists wrote specially for this 
stage — not In order that this or that actress might eclipse all 
others, as happens nowadays in those theatres where one play 
is played scores of nights in succession, but for this given stage 
and Its actors as a whole. Ostrovskiy ( 1 823-1 886) was the 
one who best realised this mutual relation between the 
dramatic author and the stage, and thus he came to hold with 
regard to the Russian drama the same position that Tur- 
gueneff and Tolstoy hold with regard to the Russian novel. 

OSTROVSKIY: " POVERTY — NO VICE " 

Ostrovskiy was born at Moscow in the family of a poor 
clergyman, and, like the best of the younger generation of his 
time, he was from the age of seventeen an enthusiastic visitor 
of the Moscow theatre. At that age, we are told, his favourite 
talk with his comrades was the stage. He went to the Univer- 
sity, but two years later he was compelled to leave. In conse- 
quence of a quarrel with a professor, and he became an under 
clerk in one of the old Commercial tribunals. There he had 
the very best opportunities for making acquaintance with the 
world of Moscow merchants — a quite separate class which 
remained in Its Isolation the keeper of the traditions of old 
Russia. It was from this class that Ostrovskiy took nearly all 
the types of his first and best dramas. Only later on did he 
begin to widen the circle of his observations, taking in various 
classes of educated society. 

His first comedy ^ Pictures of Family Happiness, wd,s written 
in 1847, and three years later appeared his first drama. We 
shall settle it among Ourselves, or The Bankrupt, which at 
once gave him the reputation of a great dramatic write. It 
was printed in a review, and had a great vogue all over Rus- 
sia (the actor Sadovskiy read It widely in private houses at 
Moscow), but it was not allowed to be put on the stage. 
The Moscow merchants even lodged a complaint with 
Nicholas I. against the author, and Ostrovskiy was dismissed 
from the civil service and placed under police supervision 
as a suspect. Only many years later, four years after 



THE DRAMA 203 

Alexander II. had succeeded his father — that Is, In i860 — • 
was the drama played at Moscow, and even then the 
censorship Insisted upon introducing at the end of it a 
police officer to represent the triumph of justice over the 
wickedness of the bankrupt. 

For the next five years Ostrovskly published nothing, but 
then he brought out in close succession (1853 and 1854) two 
dramas of remarkable power — Don't take a seat in other 
People's Sledges, and Poverty — No Vice. The subject 
of the former was not new: a girl from a tradesman's 
family runs away with a nobleman, who abandons and Ill- 
treats her when he realises that she will get from her father 
neither pardon nor money. But this subject was treated with 
such freshness, and the characters were depicted In positions 
so well-chosen, that for its literary and stage-qualities the 
drama Is one of the best Ostrovskly has written. As to 
Poverty — No Vice, it produced a tremendous Impression all 
over Russia. We see in It a family of the old type, the head of 
which Is a rich merchant — a man who Is wont to Impose his 
will upon all his surroundings and has no other conception of 
life. He has, however, taken outwardly to " civilisation " — 
that Is, to restaurant-civilisation : he dresses In the fashions of 
Western Europe and tries to follow Western customs In his 
house — at least In the presence of the acquaintances he makes 
in the fashionable restaurants. Nevertheless, his wife Is his 
slave, and his household trembles at his voice. He has a 
daughter who loves, and Is loved by, one of her father's 
clerks, Mitya, a most timid but honest young man, and the 
mother would like her daughter to marry this clerk; but the 
father has made the acquaintance of a more or less wealthy 
aged man — a sort of Armenian money-lender, who dresses 
according to the latest fashion, drinks champagne Instead of 
rye-whiskey, and therefore plays among Moscow merchants 
a certain role of authority In questions of fashion and rules 
of propriety. To this man the girl must be married. She is 
saved, however, by the Interference of her uncle, Lubim Tort- 
soff. Lubim was once rich, like his brother, but he was not 
satisfied with the dull Philistine life of his surroundings, and 
seeing no way out of It and Into a better social atmosphere, he 
took to drink — to unmitigated drunkenness, such as was to be 



204 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

seen In olden times at Moscow. His wealthy brother has 
helped him to get rid of his fortune, and now, In a ragged 
mantle, he goes about the lower class taverns, making of 
himself a sort of jester for a chance glass of gin. Penniless, 
dressed In his rags, cold and hungry, he comes to the young 
clerk's room, asking permission to stay there over night. 

The drama goes on at Christmas time, and this gives 
Ostrovskly the opportunity for Introducing all sorts of songs 
and Christmas masquerades. In true Russian style. In the 
midst of all this merriment, which has been going on In his 
absence, Tortsoff, the father, comes In with the bridegroom 
of his choice. All the " vulgar " pleasures must now come to 
an end, and the father, full of veneration for his fashionable 
friend, curtly orders his daughter to marry the man he has 
chosen for her. The tears of the girl and her mother are of no 
avail: the father's orders must be obeyed. But there enters 
Lubim Tortsoff, in his rags and with his jester's antics — 
terrible in his degradation, and yet a man. The father's terror 
at such a sight can easily be Imagined, and Lubim Tortsoff, 
who during his wanderings has heard all about the Arme- 
nian's past, and who knows of his brother's scheme, begins to 
tell before the guests what sort of man the would-be bride- 
groom is. The latter, holding himself Insulted in his friend's 
house, affects great anger and leaves the room, while Lubim 
Tortsoff tells his brother what a crime he Is going to commit 
by giving his daughter to the old man. He is ordered to leave 
the room, but he persists and, standing in the rear of the 
crowd, he begins piteously to beg: "Brother, give your 
daughter to Mitya " (the young clerk) : " he, at least, will 
give me a corner In his house. I have suffered enough from 
cold and hunger. My years are passing : it becomes hard for 
me to get my piece of bread by performing my antics In the 
bitter frost. Mitya will let me live honestly in my old age." 
The mother and daughter join with the uncle, and finally the 
father, who resents the insults of his friend, exclaims : " Well, 
do you take me, then, for a wild beast? I won't give my 
daughter to that man. Mitya, marry her I " 

The drama has a happy end, but the audience feels that It 
might have been as well the other way. The father's whim 
might have ended in the life-long misery and misfortune of 



THE DRAMA 205 

the daughter, and this would probably have been the outcome 
in most such cases. 

Like Griboyedoff's comedy, like Gontcharoff's Oblomoff, 
and many other good things in Russian literature, this drama 
is so typically Russian that one is apt to overlook its broadly 
human signification. It seems to be typically Moscovite; but, 
change names and customs, change a few details and rise a 
bit higher or sink a bit lower in the strata of society; put, 
instead of the drunkard Lubim Tortsoff, a poor relation or an 
honest friend who has retained his common sense — and the 
drama applies to any nation and to any class of society. It 
is deeply human. This is what caused its tremendous success 
and made it a favourite on every Russian stage for fifty years. 
I do not speak, of course, of the foolishly exaggerated enthu- 
siasm with which it was received by the so-called nationalists, 
and especially the Slavophiles, who saw in Lubim TortsofF 
the personification of the '' good old times " of Russia. The 
more sensible of Russians did not go to such lengths; but 
they understood what wonderful material of observation, 
drawn from real life, this and the other dramas of Ostrovskiy 
were offering. The leading review of the time was The Con- 
temporary, and its leading critic, Dobroluboff, wrote two 
long articles to analyse Ostrovskiy's dramas, under the signifi- 
cant title of The Kingdom of Darkness; and when he had 
passed in review all the darkness which then prevailed in 
Russian life as represented by Ostrovskiy, he produced some- 
thing which has been one of the most powerful influences In 
the whole subsequent intellectual development of the Russian 
youth. 

" THE THUNDERSTORM " 

One of the best dramas of Ostrovskiy Is The Thunder- 
storm (translated by Mrs. Constance Garnett as The Storm) . 
The scene is laid in a small provincial town, somewhere on 
the upper Volga, where the manners of the local trades- 
people have retained the stamp of primitive wlldness. There 
is, for instance, one old merchant, Dikoy, very much re- 
spected by the inhabitants, who represents a special type of 
those tyrants whom Ostrovskiy has so well depicted. When- 
ever Dikoy has a payment to make, even though he knows 



2o6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

perfectly well that pay he must, he stirs up a quarrel with the 
man to whom he Is In debt. He has an old friend, Madame 
Kabanova, and when he Is the worse for drink, and In a bad 
temper, he always goes to her: "I have no business with 
you,*' he declares, " but I have been drinking." Following 
is a scene which takes place between them : 

Kabanova: I really wonder at you; with all the crowd of folks in 
your house, not a single one can do anything to your liking. 

Dikoy : That's so! 

Kabanova: Come, what do you want of me? 

Dikoy: Well, talk me out of my temper. You're the only person 
in the whole town who knows how to talk to me. 

Kabanova: How have they put you into such a rage? 

Dikoy: I've been so all day since the morning. 

Kabanova: I suppose they've been asking for money. 

Dikoy: As if they were in league together, damn them! One after 
another, the whole day long they've been at me. 

Kabanova: No doubt you'll have to give it them, or they wouldn't 
persist. 

Dikoy: I know that; but what would you have me do, since I've a 
temper like that? Why, I know that I must pay, still I can't do it 
with a good will. You're a friend of mine, and I've to pay you some- 
thing, and you come and ask me for it — I'm bound to swear at you! 
Pay I will, if pay I must, but I must swear too. For you've only to 
hint at money to me, and I feel hot all over in a minute; red-hot all 
over, and that's all about It. You may be sure at such times I'd swear 
at anyone for nothing at all. 

Kabanova: You have no one over you, and so you think you can do 
as you like. 

Dikoy: No, you hold your tongue! Listen to me! I'll tell you the 
sort of troubles that happen to me. I had fasted in Lent, and was all 
ready for Communion, and then the Evil One thrusts a wretched 
peasant under my nose. He had come for money, for wood he had 
supplied us. And, for my sins, he must needs show himself at a time 
like that! I fell into sin, of course; I pitched into him, pitched into 
him finely, I did, all but thrashed him. There you have it, my temper ! 
Afterwards I asked his pardon, bowed down to his feet, upon my 
word I did. It's the truth I'm telling you, I bowed down to a peasant's 
feet. That's what my temper brings me to : on the spot there, in the 
mud I bowed down to his feet; before everyone, I did.* 

* Taken from the excellent translation of Mrs. C. Garnett {The 
Storniy London, Duckworth & Co., 1899). 



THE DRAMA 207 

Madame Kabanova is well matched with Dikoy. She may 
be less primitive than her friend, but she Is an Infinitely more 
tyrannical oppressor. Her son Is married and loves, more or 
less, his young wife; but he is kept under his mother's rule 
just as If he were a boy. The mother hates, of course, the 
young wife, Katerina, and tyrannises over her as much as she 
can ; and the husband has no energy to step In and defend her. 
He Is only too happy when he can slip away from the house. 
He might have shown more love to his wife if they had been 
living apart from his mother; but being in this house, always 
under Its tyrannical rule, he looks upon his wife as part of It 
all. Katerina, on the contrary, Is a poetical being. She was 
brought up in a very good family, where she enjoyed full 
liberty, before she married the young Kabanoff, and now she 
feels very unhappy under the yoke of her terrible mother-in- 
law, having nobody but a weakling husband to occasionally 
say a word in her favour. There Is also a little detail — she has 
a mortal fear of thunderstorms. This Is a feature which Is 
quite characteristic In the small towns on the upper Volga : I 
have myself known well educated ladles who, having once 
been frightened by one of these sudden storms — they are of 
a terrific grandeur — retained a life-long fear of thunder. 

It so happens that Katerina's husband has to leave his town 
for a fortnight. Katerina, in the meantime, who has met 
occasionally on the promenade a young man, Boris, a nephew 
of Dikoy, and has received some attention from him, partly 
driven to it by her husband's sister — a very flighty girl, who 
Is wont to steal from the back garden to meet her sweethearts 
— has during these few days one or two Interviews with the 
young man, and falls In love with him. Boris Is the first man 
who, since her marriage, has treated her with respect; he 
himself suffers from the opresslon of Dikoy, and she feels 
half-sympathy, half-love towards him. But Boris Is also of 
weak, irresolute character, and as soon as his uncle Dikoy 
orders him to leave the town he obeys and has only the usual 
words of regret that " circumstances " so soon separate him 
from Katerina. The husband returns, and when he, his wife, 
and the old mother Kabanova are caught by a terrific thunder- 
storm on the promenade along the Volga, Katerina, In mortal 
fear of sudden death, tells In the presence of the crowd 



2o8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

which has taken refuge In a shelter on the promenade what 
has happened during her husband's absence. The consequences 
will best be learned from the following scene, which I quote 
from the same translation. It also takes place on the high 
bank of the Volga. After having wandered for some time in 
the dusk on the solitary bank, Katerina at last perceives Boris 
and runs up to him. 

Katerina: At last I see you again! (Weeps on his breast. Silenced) 

Boris: Well, God has granted us to weep together. 

Katerina: You have not forgotten me? 

Boris : How can you speak of forgetting ? 

Katerina: Oh, no, it was not that, not that! You are not angry? 

Boris: Angry for what? 

Katerina: Forgive me! I did not mean to do you any harm, I was 
not free myself. I did not know what I said, what I did. 

Boris: Don't speak of it! Don't. 

Katerina: WelL how is it with you? What are you going to do? 

Boris: I am going away. 

Katerina: Where are you going? 

Boris: Far away, Katya, to Siberia. 

Katerina: Take me with you, away from here. 

Boris: I cannot, Katya. I am not going of my free will; my uncle 
is sending me, he has the horses waiting for me already ; I only begged 
for a minute, I wanted to take a last farewell of the spot where we 
used to see each other. 

Katerina: Go, and God be with you! Don't grieve over me. At first 
your heart will be heavy, perhaps, poor boy, but then you will begin 
to forget. 

Boris: Why talk of me! I am free at least; how about you? what of 
your husband's mother? 

Katerina: She tortures me, she locks me up. She tells everyone, even 
my husband : " Don't trust her, she is sly and deceitful." They all 
follow me about all day long, and laugh at me before my face. At 
every word they reproach me with you. 

Boris: And your husband? 

Katerina: One minute he's kind, one minute he*s angry, but he's 
drinking all the while. He is loathsome to me, loathsome; his kindness 
is worse than his blows. 

Boris: You are wretched, Katya? 

Katerina: So wretched, so wretched, that it were better to die! 

Boris: Who could have dreamed that we should have to sufEer such 
anguish for our love! I'd better have run away then! 



THE DRAMA 209 

Katerina: It was an evil day for me when I saw you. Joy I have 
known little of, but of sorrow, of sorrow, how much! And how 
much is still before me ! But why think of what is to be ! I am seeing 
you now, that much they cannot take away from me; and I care 
for nothing more. All I wanted was to see you. Now my heart is 
much easier; as though a load had been taken off me. I kept thinking 
you were angry with me, that you were cursing me. . . . 

Boris: How can you! How can you! 

Katerina: No, that is not what I mean; that is not what I wanted 
to say! I was sick with longing for you, that's it; and now, I have 
seen you. . . . 

Boris: They must not come upon us here! 

Katerina: Stay a minute! Stay a minute! Something I meant to say 
to you! I've forgotten! Something I had to say! Everything is in con- 
fusion in my head, I can remember nothing. 

Boris: It's time I went, Katya! 

Katerina : Wait a minute, a minute ! 

Boris: Come, what did you want to say? 

Katerina: I will tell you directly. {Thinking a moment,) Yes! As 
you travel along the highroads, do not pass by one beggar, give to 
everyone, and bid them pray for my sinful soul. 

Boris: Ah, if these people knew what it is to me to part from you! 
My God ! God grant they may one day know such bitterness as I know 
now. Farewell, Katya! {Embraces her and tries to go away.) Mis- 
creants ! monsters ! Ah, if I were strong ! 

Katerina: Stay, stay! Let me look at you for the last time {gazes 
into his face). Now all is over with me. The end is come for me. 
Now, God be with thee. Go, go quickly ! 

Boris: {Moves away a few steps and stands still.) Katya, I feel a 
dread of something! You have something fearful in your mind? I 
shall be in torture as I go, thinking of you. 

Katerina: No, no! Go in God's name! {Boris is about to go up to 
her.) No, no, enough. 

Boris: (Sobbing.) God be with theel There's only one thing to 
pray God for, that she may soon be dead, that she may not be tortured 
long! Farewell! 

Katerina: Farewell! 

{Boris goes out. Katerina follows him with her eyes and stands for 
some time, lost in thought,)^ 



2IO RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

SCENE IV. 

Katerina (alone). 

Where am I going now? Home? No, home or the grave — it is the 
same. Yes, home or the grave ! ... the grave ! Better the grave. 
. . . A little grave under a tree . . . how sweet. . . . 
The sunshine warms it, the sweet rain falls on it . . . in the 
spring the grass grows on it, soft and sweet grass . . . the birds 
will fly in the tree and sing, and bring up their little ones, and flowers 
will bloom; golden, red and blue ... all sorts of flowers, 
(dreamingly) all sorts of flowers . . . how still! how sweet! 
My heart is as it were lighter ! But of life I don't want to think ! Live 
again! No, no, no use . . . life is not good! . . . And 
people are hateful to me, and the house is hateful, and the walls are 
hateful! I will not go there! No, no, I will not go! If I go to them, 
they'll come and talk, and what do I want with that? Ah, it has 
grown dark! And there is singing again somewhere! What are they 
singing? I can't make out. . . . To die now. . . . What 
are they singing? It is just the same whether death comes, or of 
myself . . . but live I cannot! A sin to die so! . . . they 
won't pray for me! If anyone loves me, he will pray . . . they 
will fold my arms crossed in the grave ! Oh, yes. ... I remem- 
ber. But when they catch me, and take me home by force. . . . 
Ah, quickly, quickly! (Goes to the river bank. Aloud)M.y dear one! 
My sweet ! Farewell ! (Exit.) 

(Enter Mme. Kabanova, Kabanov, Kulighin and workmen with 
torches.) 

The Thunderstorm is one of the best dramas In the modern 
repertoire of the Russian stage. From the stage point of view 
it Is simply admirable. Every scene Is impressive, the drama 
develops rapidly, and everyone of the twelve characters Intro- 
duced In It Is a joy to the dramatic artist. The parts of DIkoy, 
Varvara (the frivolous sister), Kabanoff, Kudryash (the 
sweetheart of Varvara), an old artisan-engineer, nay even 
the old lady with two male-servants, who appears only for a 
couple of minutes — each one will be found a source of deep 
artistic pleasure by the actor or actress who takes It; while 
the parts of Katerina and Mme. Kabanova are such that no 
great actress would neglect them. 

Concerning the main Idea of the drama, I shall have to 



THE DRAMA 211 

repeat here what I have already said once or twice in the 
course of these sketches. At first sight It may seem that Mme. 
Kabanova and her son are exclusively Russian types — types 
which exist no more In Western Europe. So It was said, at 
least, by several English critics. But such an assertion seems 
to be hardly correct. The submissive Kabanoffs may be rare 
in England, or at least their sly submlsslveness does not go 
to the same lengths as It does In The Thunderstorm. But even 
for Russian society Kabanoff Is not very typical. As to 
his mother, Mme. Kabanova, every one of us m.ust have 
met her more than once In English surroundings. Who does 
not know. Indeed, the old lady who for the mere pleasure of 
exercising her power will keep her daughters at her side, pre- 
vent their marrying, and tyrannise over them till they have 
grown grey-haired? or In thousands or other ways exercise 
her tyranny over her household? Dickens knew Mme. 
Kabanova well, and she is still alive in these Islands, as every- 
where else. 

ostrovskiy's later dramas 

As Ostrovskly advanced in years and widened the scope of 
his observations of Russian life, he drew his characters from 
other circles besides that of the merchants, and in his later 
dramas he gave such highly attractive, progressive types as 
The Poor Bride, Parasha (in a beautiful comedy. An Impetu- 
ous Heart) , Agniya in Carnival has its End, the actor Nes- 
chastlivtseff (Mr. Unfortunate) in a charming idyll. The 
Forest, and so on. And as regards his " negative " (undesir- 
able) types, taken from the life of the St. Petersburg bureau- 
cracy or from the millionaire and " company-promoters " 
circles, Ostrovskly deeply understood them and attained the 
artistic realisation of wonderfully true, coldly-harsh, though 
apparently " respectable " types, such as no other dramatic 
writer has ever succeeded In producing. 

Altogether Ostrovskly wrote about fifty dramas and 
comedies, and every one of them Is excellent for the stage. 
There are no Insignificant parts in them. A great actor or 
actress may take one of the smallest parts, consisting of per- 
haps but a few words pronounced during a few minutes' 
appearance on the stage — and yet feel that there is material 



212 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

enough in It to create a character. As for the main personages, 
Ostrovskly fully understood that a considerable part In the 
creation of a character must be left to the actor. There are 
consequently parts which without such a collaboration would 
be pale and unfinished, while In the hands of a true actor they 
yield material for a deeply psychological and profoundly 
dramatic personification. This is why a lover of dramatic art 
finds such a deep aesthetic pleasure both in playing in Ostrov- 
skly^s dramas and In reading them aloud. 

Realism, In the sense which already has been indicated 
several times In these pages — that Is, a realistic description 
of characters and events, subservient to Ideal aims — is the dis- 
tinctive feature of all Ostrovskiy's dramas. As In the novels 
of Turgueneff, the simplicity of his plots is striking. But you 
see life — true life with all its pettinesses — developing before 
you, and out of these petty details grows insensibly the 
plot. 

" One scene follows another, and all of them are so com- 
monplace, such an everyday matter! — and yet, out of them, 
a terrible drama has quite imperceptibly grown into being. 
You could affirm that it Is not a comedy being played before 
you, but life itself unrolled before your eyes — as if the 
author had simply opened a wall and shown you what is 
going on inside this or that house." In these just words one 
of our critics, Skabitchevskly, has described Ostrovskiy's 
work. 

In his dramas Ostrovskiy introduced an immense variety 
of characters taken from all classes of Russian life; but he 
once for all abandoned the ofd romantic division of human 
types into '' good " and " bad " ones. In real life these two 
divisions are blended together and merge into another; and 
while even now an English dramatic author cannot conceive a 
drama without " the villain,'* Ostrovskly never felt the need 
of introducing that conventional personage. Nor did he feel 
the need of resorting to the conventional rules of " dramatic 
conflict.'* To quote once more from the same critic: 

" There is no possibility of bringing his comedies under some gen- 
eral principle, such as a struggle of duty against inclination, or a 
collision of passions which calls forth a fatal result, or an antagonism 



THE DRAMA 213 

between good and evil, or between progress and ignorance. His com- 
edies represent the most varied human relations. Just as we find it in 
life, men stand in these comedies in different obligatory relations 
towards each other, which relations have, of course, their origin in the 
past; and when these men have been brought together, conflicts neces- 
sarily arise between them, out of these very relations. As to the out- 
come of the conflict, it is, as a rule quite unforeseen, and often 
depends, as usually happens in real life, upon mere accidents." 

Like Ibsen, Ostrovskly sometimes will not even undertake 
to say how the drama will end. 

And finally, Ostrovskly, notwithstanding the pessimism of 
all his contemporaries — the writers of the forties — was not a 
pessimist. Even amidst the most terrible conflicts depicted In 
his dramas he retained the sense of the joy of Hfe and of the 
unavoidable fatality of many of the miseries of life. He never 
recoiled before painting the darker aspects of the human tur- 
moil, and he has given a most repulsive collection of family- 
despots from the old merchant class, followed by a col- 
lection of still more repulsive types from the class of indus- 
trial '^ promoters." But In one way or another he managed 
either to show that there are better Influences at work, or, at 
least, to suggest the possible triumph of some better element. 
He thus avoided falling Into the pessimism which charac- 
terised his contemporaries, and he had nothing of the hysteri- 
cal turn of mind which we find in some of his modern follow- 
ers. Even at moments when, in some one of his dramas, life 
all round wears the gloomiest aspect (as, for Instance, in Sin 
and Misfortune may visit everyone, which Is a page from 
peasant life as realistically dark, but better suited for the 
stage, than Tolstoy's Power of Darkness) , even then a gleam 
of hope appears, at least, In the contemplation of nature, 
If nothing else remains to redeem the gloominess of human 
folly. 

And yet, there Is one thing — and a very Important one — 
which stands In the way of Ostrovskly's occupying in Inter- 
national dramatic hterature the high position to which his 
powerful dramatic talent entitled him, and being recognised 
as one of the great dramatists of our century. The dramatic 
conflicts which we find In his dramas are all of the simpler 
sort. There are none of the more tragical problems and 



214 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

entanglements which the complicated nature of the educated 
man of our own times and the different aspects of the great 
social questions are giving birth to in the conflicts arising now 
in every stratum and class of society. But it must also be said 
that the dramatist who can treat these modern problems of 
life in the same masterly way In which the Moscow writer 
has treated the simpler problems which he saw in his own 
surroundings, is yet to come. 

HISTORICAL DRAMAS — A. K. TOLSTOY. 

At a later period of his life Ostrovskly turned to historical 
drama, which he wrote in excellent blank verse. But, like 
Shakespeare's plays from English history, and Pushkin's 
Boris Godunoff, they have more the character of dramatised 
chronicles than of dramas properly speaking. They belong 
too much to the domain of the epic, and the dramatic interest 
is too often sacrificed to the desire of Introducing historical 
colouring. 

The same Is true, though In a lesser degree, of the historical 
dramas of Count Alexei Konstantinovitch Tolstoy 
(i8i7-i875).A. K. Tolstoy was above all a poet ; but he also 
wrote a historical novel from the times of John the Terrible, 
Prince Serebryanyi, which had a very great success, partly 
because In It for the first time censorship had permitted fiction 
to deal with the half-mad Tsar who played the part of the 
Louis XL of the Russian Monarchy, but especially on account 
of Its real qualities as a historical novel. He also tried his 
talent In a dramatic poem, Don Juan, much Inferior, however, 
to Pushkin's drama dealing with the same subject; but his 
main work was a trilogy of three tragedies from the times of 
John the Terrible and the Imposter Demetrius : The Death of 
John the Terrible, The Tsar Theodor Ivdnovitch, and Boris 
Godunoff. 

These three tragedies have a considerable value; in each 
the situation of the hero Is really highly dramatic, and treated 
In a most Impressive way, while the settings In the palaces of 
the old Moscow Tsars are extremely decorative and impres- 
sive In their sumptuous originality. But In all three tragedies 
the development of the dramatic element suffers from the 



THE DRAMA 215 

intrusion of the epical descriptive element, and the characters 
are either not quite correct historically (Boris Godunoff is 
deprived of his rougher traits in favour of a certain quiet 
idealism which was a personal feature of the author) , or they 
do not represent that entireness of character which we are 
accustomed to find in Shakespeare's dramas. Of course, the 
tragedies of Tolstoy's are extremely far from the romanticism 
of the dramas of Victor Hugo ; they are, all things considered, 
realistic dramas; but in the framing of the human characters 
some romanticism is felt still, and this is especially evident 
in the construction of the character of John the Terrible. 

An exception must, however, be made in favour of The 
Tsar Theodor Ivdnovitch. A. K. Tolstoy was a devoted per- 
sonal friend of Alexander II. and, refusing all administrative 
posts of honour which were offered him, he preferred the 
modest position of a Head of the Imperial Hunt, which per- 
mitted him to retain his Independence, while remaining in 
close contact with the Emperor. Owing to this intimacy he 
must have had the best opportunities for observing, especially 
in the later years of Alexander II. 's reign, the struggles to 
which a good-hearted man of weak character is exposed when 
he is a Tsar of Russia. Of course the Tsar Theodor is not In 
the least an attempt at portraying Alexander II. — this would 
have been beneath an artist — ^but the weakness of Alexander's 
character must have suggested those features of reality in the 
character of Theodor which makes it so much better painted 
than either John the Terrible or Boris Godunoff. The Tsar 
Theodor is a really living creation. 

OTHER DRAMATIC WRITERS 

Of Other writers for the stage, we can only briefly mention 
the most Interesting ones. 

TuRGUENEFF wrote. In 1 848-1 85 1, five comedies, which 
offer all the elements for refined acting, are very lively and, 
being written in a beautiful style (Turgueneff's prose!) are 
still the source of aesthetic pleasure for the more refined play- 
goers. 

SuKHOVO-KoBYLiN has already been mentioned. He wrote 
one comedy. The Marriage of Kretchinskiy, which made 



2i6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Its mark and is still played with success, and a trilogy, The 
Affair, which is a powerful satire against bureaucracy, but is 
less effective on the stage than the former. 

A. PisEMSKiY, the novelist (i 820-1881), wrote, besides 
a few good novels and several insignificant comedies, one 
remarkably good drama — A Bitter Fate, from the peasants' 
life, which he knew well and rendered admirably. It must be 
said that Leo Tolstoy's well known Power of Darkness — 
taken also from peasant life — notwithstanding all its power, 
has not eclipsed the drama of Pisemskiy. 

The novelist A. A. Potyekhin (1829-1902) also wrote 
for the stage, and must not be omitted even in such a rapid 
sketch of the Russian drama as this. His comedies. Tinsel, 
A Slice Cut-off, A Vacant Situation, In Muddy Waters, met 
with the greatest difficulties as regards censorship, and the 
third was never put on the stage; but those which were played 
were always a success, while the themes that he treated always 
attracted the attention of our critics. The first of them, Tinsel, 
can be taken as a fair representative of the talent of 
Potyekhin. 

This comedy answered a " question of the day." For sev- 
eral years Russian literature, following especially in the 
steps of ScHEDRiN (see Ch. VIII. ), delighted in the descrip- 
tion of those functionaries of the Government boards and 
tribunals who lived (before the reforms of the sixties) al- 
most entirely upon bribes. However, after the reforms had 
been carried through, a new race of functionaries had grown 
up, " those who took no bribes," but at the same time, owing 
to their strait-laced official rigorism, and their despotic and 
unbridled egotism, were even worse specimens of mankind 
than any of the " bribe-takers " of old. The hero of Tinsel is 
precisely such a man. His character, with all its secondary 
features — his ingratitude and especially his love (or what 
passes for love in him) — is perhaps too much blackened for 
the purposes of the drama : men so consistently egotistical and 
formalistic are seldom, if ever, met with in real life. But one 
is almost convinced by the author of the reality of the type — 
with so masterly a hand does he unroll in a variety of 
incidents the " correct " and deeply egotistic nature of his 
hero. 



THE DRAMA 217 

In this respect the comedy is very clever, and offers full op- 
portunity for excellent acting. 

A dramatic writer who enjoyed a long-standing success was 
A. I. Palm (i 823-1 885). In 1849 he was arrested for 
having frequented persons belonging to the circle of Petra- 
shevskiy (see Dostoyevskiy), and from that time his life 
was a series of misfortunes, so that he returned to literary 
activity only at the age of fifty. He belonged to the genera- 
tion of Turgueneff, and, knowing well that type of noblemen, 
whom the great novelist has depicted so well in his Hamlets, 
he wrote several comedies from the life of their circles. The 
Old Nobleman and Our Friend Nekluzheff were till lately 
favourite plays on the stage. The actor, I. E. Tcherny- 
SHOFE, who wrote several comedies and one serious drama, 
A Spoiled Life, which produced a certain impression in 1861 ; 
N. SoLOViOFF, and a very prolific writer, V. A. Kryloff 
(Alexandroff), must also be mentioned in this brief 
sketch. 

And finally, two young writers have brought out lately 
comedies and dramatic scenes which have produced a deep 
sensation. I mean Anton Tchehoff, whose drama Ivdnoff 
was a few years ago the subject of the most passionate discus- 
sions, and Maxim Gorkiy, whose drama. The Artisans, un- 
doubtedly reveals a dramatic talent, while his just published 
" dramatic scenes," At the Bottom — they are only scenes, 
without an attempt at building a drama — are extremely 
powerful, and even eclipse his best sketches. More will be 
said of them in the next chapter. 



PART VII 

Folk-Novelists 



CHAPTER VII 

FOLK-NOVELISTS 

THEIR Position in Russian Literature — The Early Folk-Novelists: 
— ^Grigorovitch — Marko Vovtchok — Danilevskiy — Intermediate 
Period : Kokoreff — Pisemskiy — Potyekhin — Ethnographical Re- 
searches — The Realistic School : — Pomyalovskiy — Ryeshetnikoff 
— Levitoff — Gleb Uspenskiy — Zlatovratskiy and other Folk- 
Novelists — Naumoff — Zasodimskiy — Saloif — Nefedoff — Modern 
Realism: Maxim Gorkiy. 

aN important division of Russian novelists, almost totally 
/\ unknown in Western Europe, and yet representing 
^ j^perhaps the most typical portion of Russian literature, 
are the " Folk-Novelists." It Is under this name that we 
know them chiefly In Russia, and under this name the critic 
Skabltchevskly has analysed them — first, In a book bearing 
this title, and then In his excellent History of Modern 
Russian Literature (4th ed. 1900). By "Folk-Novelists'* 
we mean, of course, not those who write for the people, but 
those who write about the people: the peasants, the miners, 
the factory workers, the lowest strata of population In towns, 
the tramps. Bret Flarte In his sketches of the mining camps, 
Zola in UAssommoir and Germinal, Mr. GIssIng In Liza of 
Lambeth, Mr. Whiting In No. 5 John Street, belong to this 
category; but what Is exceptional and accidental In Western 
Europe Is organic In Russia. 

Quite a number of talented writers have devoted them- 
selves during the last fifty years, some of them entirely, to the 
description of this or that division of the Russian people. 
Every class of the tolling masses, which in other literatures 
would have appeared In novels as the background for events 
going on amidst educated people (as In Hardy's Wood- 
landers) ^ has had in the Russian novel Its own painter. All 

221 



222 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

great questions concerning popular life which are debated in 
political and social books and reviews have been treated in 
the novel as well. The evils of serfdom and, later on, the 
struggle between the tiller of the soil and growing commer- 
cialism; the effects of factories upon village life, the great 
cooperative fisheries, peasant life in certain monasteries, and 
life in the depths of the Siberian forests, slum life and tramp 
life — all these have been depicted by the folk-novelists, and 
their novels have been as eagerly read as the works of the 
greatest authors. And while such questions as, for instance, 
the future of the village-community, or of the peasants' Com- 
mon Law Courts, are debated in the daily papers, in the 
scientific reviews and the journals of statistical research, they 
are also dealt with by means of artistic images and types 
taken from life in the folk-novel. 

Moreover, the folk-novelists, taken as a whole, represent 
a great school of realism in art, and in true realism they have 
surpassed all those writers who have been mentioned in the 
preceding chapters. Of course, Russian " realism," as the 
reader of this book is already well aware, is something quite 
different from what was represented as *' naturalism '' and 
" realism " in France by Zola. As already remarked, Zola, 
notwithstanding his propaganda of realism, always re- 
mained an inveterate romantic in the conception of his 
leading characters, both of the " saint " and of the " villain " 
type ; and no doubt because of this — perhaps feeling It him- 
self — he gave, as a compensation, such an exaggerated Im- 
portance to speculations about physiological heredity and 
to the accumulation of pretty descriptive details, many of 
which, especially amongst his repulsive types, might have been 
omitted without depriving the characters of any really signif- 
icant feature. In Russia the " realism " of Zola has always 
been considered too superficial, too outward, and while our 
folk-novelists also have often Indulged In an unnecessary 
profusion of detail — sometimes decidedly ethnographical — 
they have aimed nevertheless at that inner realism which 
appears In the construction of such characters as are really 
representative of life taken as a whole. Their aim has been 
to represent life without distortion — whether that distortion 
consists In Introducing petty details, which may be true, but 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 223 

are accidental, or in endowing heroes with virtues or vices 
which are indeed met with here and there, but ought not to 
be generalised. Several novelists, as will be seen presently, 
have objected even to the usual ways of describing types and 
relating the individual dramas of a few typical heroes. They 
have made the extremely bold attempt of describing life itself ^ 
in its succession of petty actions, moving on amidst its grey 
and dull surroundings, introducing only that dramatic element 
which results from the endless succession of petty and de- 
pressing details and wonted circumstances; and it must be 
owned that they have not been quite unsuccessful in striking 
out this new line of art — perhaps the most tragical of all. 
Others, again, have introduced a new type of artistic repre- 
sentation of life, which occupies an Intermediate position be- 
tween the novel, properly so-called, and a demographic de- 
scription of a given population. Thus, Gleb Uspenskly knew 
how to Intermingle artistic descriptions of typical village-peo- 
ple with discussions belonging to the domain of folk-psychol- 
ogy in so interesting a manner that the reader willingly 
pardons him these digressions; while others like Maximoff 
succeeded In making out of their ethnographical descriptions 
real works of art, without in the least diminishing their 
scientific value. 

THE EARLY FOLK-NOVELISTS 

One of the earliest folk-novelists was Grigorovitch 
(182 2- 18 99), a man of great talent, who sometimes is 
placed by the side of Tolstoy, Turgueneff, Gontcharoff and 
Ostrovskiy. His literary career was very interesting. He was 
born of a Russian father and a French mother, and at the 
age of ten hardly knew Russian at all. His education was 
entirely foreign — chiefly French — and he never really lived 
the village life amidst which Turgueneff or Tolstoy grew up. 
Moreover, he never gave himself exclusively to literature: 
he was a painter as well as a novelist, and at the same time 
a fine connoisseur of art, and for the last thirty years of his 
life he wrote almost nothing, but gave all his time to the 
Russian Society of Painters. And yet this half-Russian was 
one of those who rendered the same service to Russia before 



224 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

the abolition of serfdom that Harriet Beecher Stowe 
rendered to the United States by her description of the 
sufferings of the negro slaves. 

Grigorovltch was educated In the same military school of 
engineers as was Dostoyevskly^ and after having finished his 
education there, he took a tiny room from the warder of the 
Academy of Arts, with the intention of giving himself en- 
tirely to art. However, In the studios he made the acquaint- 
ance of the Little Russian poet Shevtchenko, and next of 
Nekrasoff and Valerian Maykoff (a critic of great power, 
who died very young), and through them he found his voca- 
tion in literature. 

In the early forties he was known only by a charming 
sketch. The Organ Grinders, In which he spoke with great 
warmth of feeling of the miserable life of this class of the 
St. Petersburg population. Russian society, in those years, 
felt the Impression of the Socialist revival of France, and 
its best representatives were growing Impatient with serfdom 
and absolutism. Fourier and Pierre Leroux were favourite 
writers in advanced Intellectual circles, and Grigorovltch was 
carried on by the growing current. He left St. Petersburg, 
went to stay for a year or two in the country, and In 1846 
he published his first novel dealing with country life. The 
Village. He depicted In It, without any exaggeration, the 
dark sides of village life and the horrors of serfdom, and 
he did it so vividly that Byelinskly, the critic, at once recog- 
nised In him a new writer of great power, and greeted him 
as such. His next novel, Anton the Unfortunate, also drawn 
from village life, was a tremendous successs, and Its influence 
was almost equal to that of Uncle Tom^s Cabin. No 
educated man or woman of his generation or of ours could 
have read the book without weeping over the misfortunes 
of Anton, and finding better feelings growing in his heart 
towards the serfs. Several novels of the same character fol- 
lowed in the next eight years (1847 ^^ ^^55) — The Fisher- 
men, The Immigrants, The Tiller, The Tramp, The Country 
Roads — and then Grigorovltch came to a stop. In 1865 he 
took part with some of our best writers — Gontcharoff, 
Ostrovskly, Maximoff (the ethnographer), and several 
others — in a literary expedition organised by the Grand 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 225 

Duke Constantlne for the exploration of Russia and voyages 
round the world on board ships of the Navy. Grigorovitch 
made a very interesting sea-voyage ; but his sketches of travel 
— The Ship Retvizan — cannot be compared with Gon- 
tcharoff's Frigate Pallas. On returning from the expedition 
he abandoned literature to devote himself entirely to art, 
and he subsequently brought out only a couple of novels and 
his Reminiscences. He died in 1899. 

Grigorovitch thus published all his chief novels between 
the years 1846 and 1855. Opinion about his work is divided. 
Some of our critics speak of it very highly, but others — and 
they are the greater number — say that his peasants are not 
quite real. Turgueneff made also the observation that his 
descriptions are too cold: the heart is not felt in them. This 
last remark may be true, although the average reader who 
did not know Grigorovitch personally hardly would have 
made it : at any rate, at the time of the appearance of Anton, 
The Fishermen, etc., the great public judged the author of 
these works differently. As to his peasants, I will permit 
myself to make one suggestion. Undoubtedly they are slightly 
idealised; but it must also be said that the Russian peasantry 
does not present a compact, uniform mass. Several races have 
settled upon the territory of European Russia, and different 
portions of the population have followed different lines of 
development. The peasant from South Russia is quite dif- 
ferent from the Northerner, and the Western peasants 
differ in every respect from the Eastern ones. Grigorovitch 
described chiefly those living directly south of Moscow, in 
the provinces of Tula and Kaluga, and they are exactly that 
mild and slightly poetical, downtrodden and yet inoffensive, 
good-hearted race of peasants that Grigorovitch described in 
his novels — a sort of combination of the Lithuanian and 
the Little-Russian poetical mind, with the Great-Russian 
communal spirit. Ethnographers themselves see in the pop- 
ulations of this part of Russia a special ethnographical 
division. 

Of course, Turgueneff 's peasants (Tula and Oryol) are 
more real, his types are more definite, and every one of the 
modern folk-novelists, even of the less talented, has gone 
much further than Grigorovitch did into the depths of 



226 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

peasant character and life. But such as they were, the novels 
of Grigorovltch exercised a profound influence on a whole 
generation. They made us love the peasants and feel how 
heavy was the indebtedness towards them which weighed 
upon us — the educated part of society. They powerfully con- 
tributed towards creating a general feeling in favour of the 
serfs, without which the abolition of serfdom would have 
certainly been delayed for many years to come, and assuredly 
would not have been so sweeping as It was. And at a later 
epoch his work undoubtedly contributed to the creation of 
that movement " towards the people " {v narod) which took 
place In the seventies. As to the literary influence of Grigoro- 
vltch, it was such that it may be questioned whether Tur- 
gueneff would ever have been bold enough to write as he 
did about the peasants, in his Sportsman*s Note Book, or 
Nekrasoff to compose his passionate verses about the people, 
if they had not had a forerunner In him. 

Another writer of the same school, who also produced 
a deep Impression on the very eve of the liberation of the 
serfs, was Mme. Marie MArkovitch, who wrote under the 
pseudonym of MArko Vovtchok. She was a Great Rus- 
sian — her parents belonged to the nobility of Central Russia 
— ^but she married the Little-Russian writer, MArkovitch, 
and her first book of stories from peasant-life (1857-58) 
was written In excellent Little Russian. (Turgueneff trans- 
lated them into Great Russian.) She soon returned, however, 
to her native tongue, and her second book of peasant stories, 
as well as her subsequent novels from the life of the educated 
classes, were written in Great Russian. 

At the present time the novels of Marko Vovtchok may 
seem to be too sentimental — the world-famed novel of Har- 
riett Beecher Stowe produces the same impression nowadays 
— but In those years, when the great question for Russia was 
whether the serfs should be freed or not, and when all the 
best forces of the country were needed for the struggle 
In favour of their emancipation — in those years all edu- 
cated Russia read the novels of Marko Vovtchok with 
1 delight, and wept over the fate of her peasant .fajexpiine^.-, 
I However, apart from this need of the moment — and art 
is bound to be at the service of society in such crises — the 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 227 

sketches of Mdrko Vovtchok had serious qualities. Their 
" sentlmentalism " was not the scntlmentalism of the be- 
ginning of the nineteenth century, behind which was con- 
cealed an absence of real feeling. A loving heart throbbed In 
them ; and there is in them real poetry, Inspired by the poetry 
of the Ukrainian folklore and its popular songs. With these, 
Mme. Markovitch was so familiar that, as has been remarked 
by Russian critics, she supplemented her imperfect knowledge 
of real popular life by introducing in a masterly manner 
many features inspired by the folklore and the popular songs 
of Little Russia. Her heroes were Invented, but the atmo- 
sphere of a Little-Russian village, the colours of local life, 
are in these sketches; and the soft poetical sadness of the 
Little-Russian peasantry is rendered with the tender touch 
of a woman's hand. 

Among the novelists of that period Danilevskiy (1829- 
1890) must also be mentioned. Although he Is better known 
as a writer of historical romances, his three long novels. The 
Runaways in Novorossiya (1862), Freedom, or The Run- 
ways Returned (1863), and New Territories (1867)— all 
dealing with the free settlers In Bessarabla^ — were widely 
read. They contain lively and very sympathetic scenes from 
the life of these settlers — mostly runaway serfs — who occu- 
pied the free lands, without the consent of the central govern- 
ment. In the newly annexed territories of southwestern 
Russia, and became the prey of enterprising adventurers. 

INTERMEDIATE PERIOD 

Notwithstanding all the qualities of their work, Grigoro- 
vitch and Marko Vovtchok failed to realise that the very 
fact of taking the life of the poorer classes as the subject of 
novels, ought to Imply the working out of a special literary 
manner. The usual literary technique evolved for the novel 
which deals with the leisured classes — with its mannerism, 
Its " heroes," poetised now, as the knights used to be poetised 
in the tales of chivalry — Is certainly not the most appropri- 
ate for novels treating the life of American squatters or Rus- 
sian peasants. New methods and a different style had to be 
worked out ; but this was done step by step only, and it would 



2 28 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

be extremely Interesting to show this gradual evolution, from 
Grigorovltch to the ultra-realism of Ryeshetnikoff, and finally 
to the perfection of form attained by the realist-Idealist 
Gorkly In his shorter sketches. Only a few Intermediate steps 
can, however, be Indicated In these pages. 

I. T. KoKOREFF (1826-1853), who died very young, 
after having written a few tales from the life of the petty 
artisans In towns, had not freed himself from the sentl- 
mentallsm of a benevolent outsider; but he knew this life 
from the Inside : he was born and brought up In great poverty 
among these very people; consequently, the artisans In his 
novels are real beings, described, as Dobroluboff said, " with 
warmth and yet with tender restraint, as if they were his 
nearest kin." However, " No shriek of despair, no mighty 
wrath, no mordant irony came out of this tender, patiently 
suffering heart." There is even a note of reconciliation with 
the social Inequalities. 

A considerable step in advance was made by the folk- 
novel In A. Th. PisEMSKiY ( 1 820-1 881), and A. A. Po- 
TYEKHIN (born 1829), although neither of them was exclu- 
sively a folk-novelist. Pisemskiy was a contemporary of 
Turgueneff, and at a certain time of his career it seemed 
as if he were going to take a place by the side of Turgue- 
neff, Tolstoy and Gontcharoff. He undoubtedly possessed 
a great talent. There was power and real life In whatever 
he wrote, and his novel, A Thousand Souls, appearing on the 
eve of the emancipation of the serfs (1858), produced a 
deep Impression. It was fully appreciated in Germany as 
well, where it was translated the next year. But Pisemskiy 
was not a man of principle, and this novel was his last serious 
and really good production. When the great Radical and 
NIhihst movement took place (1858-1864), and it became 
necessary to take a definite position amidst the sharp conflict 
of opinions, Pisemskiy, who was deeply pessimistic In his 
judgment of men and Ideas, and considered " opinions " as 
a mere cover for narrow egotism of the lowest sensual sort, 
took a hostile position towards this movement, and wrote 
such novels as The Unruly Sea, which were mere libels 
upon the young generation. This was, of course, the death 
of his by no means ordinary talent. 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 229 

Pisemskly wrote also, during the early part of his literary 
career, a few tales from the life of the peasants {The Car- 
penters* Artel, The St. Petersburg Man, etc.), and a drama, 
from village life, A Bitter Fate, all of which have a real 
literary value. He displayed in them a knowledge of peasant 
life and a mastery of the spoken, popular Russian language, 
together with a perfectly realistic perception of peasant char- 
acter. There was no trace of the idealisation which is so 
strongly felt in the later productions of Grigorovitch, written 
under the influence of George Sand. The steady, common- 
sense peasant characters that Pisemskiy pictured are taken 
from a real, sound observation of life, and rival the best 
peasant characters of Turgueneff. As to the drama of 
Pisemskiy (he was, by the way, a very good actor), it loses 
nothing from comparison with the best dramas of Ostrovskly, 
and is more tragic than any of them, while in powerful 
realism it is by no means inferior to Tolstoy's Power of 
Darkness, with which it has much in common, and which it 
perhaps surpasses in its stage qualities. 

The chief work of Potyekhin was his comedies, mem- 
tloned in the preceding chapter. All of them are from the 
life of the educated classes, but he wrote also a few less 
know^n dramas from the peasant life, and twice — in his early 
career in the fifties, and later on in the seventies — he turned 
to the writing of short stories and novels from popular 
life. 

These stories and novels are most characteristic of the evo- 
lution of the folk-novel during those years. In his earlier tales 
Potyekhin was entirely under the spell of the then prevailing 
manner of idealising the peasants; but in his second period, 
after having lived through the years of realism in the sixties, 
and taken part in the above-mentioned ethnographic expedi- 
tion, he changed his manner. He entirely got rid of benevo- 
lent idealisation, and represented the peasants as they were. 
In the creation of individual characters he was undoubtedly 
successful, but the life of the village — the mir — without 
which Russian village-life cannot be represented, and which 
so well appears in the works of the later folk-novelists, is 
yet missing. Altogether one feels that Potyekhin knew well 
the outer symptoms of the life of the Russian peasants, 



230 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Including their way of talking, but that he had not yet 
grasped the real soul of the peasant. This came only later on. 

ETHNOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH 

Serfdom was abolished In 1861, and the time for mere 
lamentation over Its evils was gone. Proof that the peasants 
were human beings, accessible to all human feelings, was 
no longer needed. New and far deeper problems concerning 
the life and ideals of the Russian people rose before every 
thinking Russian. Here was a mass of nearly fifty million 
people, whose manners of life, whose creed, ways of think- 
ing, and Ideals were totally different from those of the 
educated classes, and who at the same time were as unknown 
to the would-be leaders of progress as If these millions spoke 
a quite different language and belonged to a quite different 
race. 

Our best men felt that all the future development of 
Russia would be hampered by that Ignorance, If It con- 
tinued — and literature did Its best to answer the great 
questions which besieged the thinking man at every step 
of his social and political activity. 

The years 185 8- 1878 were years of the ethnographical 
exploration of Russia on such a scale that nowhere In Europe 
or America do we find anything similar. The monuments of 
old folklore and poetry; the common law of different parts 
and nationalities of the Empire; the religious beliefs and 
the forms of worship, and still more the social aspira- 
tions characteristic of the many sections of dissenters; the 
extremely Interesting habits and customs which prevail In 
the different provinces; the economical conditions of the 
peasants ; their domestic trades ; the Immense communal fish- 
eries In southeastern Russia; the thousands of forms taken 
by the popular cooperative organisations (the Artels) ; the 
" inner colonisation " of Russia, which can only be compared 
with that of the United States; the evolution of Ideas of 
landed property, and so on — all these became the subjects 
of extensive research. 

The great ethnographical expedition organised by the 
Grand Duke Constantlne, In which a number of our best 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 231 

writers took part, was only the forerunner of many expedi- 
tions, great and small, which were organised by the numerous 
Russian scientific societies for the detailed study of Russia's 
ethnography, folklore, and economics. There were men like 
Yakushkin ( 1 820-1 872), who devoted all his life to wan- 
dering on foot from village to village, dressed like the 
poorest peasant, and without any sort of thought of to-mor- 
row; drying his wet peasant cloth on his shoulders after a 
day's march under the rain, living with the peasants in 
their poor huts, and collecting folk-songs or ethnographic 
material of the highest value. 

A special type of the Russian " intellectuals '' developed 
in the so-called " Song-Collectors," and " Zemstvo Statisti- 
cians," a group of people, old and young, who during the 
last twenty-five years have as volunteers and at a ridicu- 
lously small price, devoted their lives to house-to-house 
Inquiry In behalf of the County Councils. (A. Oertel has 
admirably described these " Statisticians " In one of his 
novels.) 

Suffice It to say that, according to A. N. Pypin, the author 
of an exhaustive History of Russian Ethnography (4 vols.) , 
not less than 4000 large works and bulky review articles 
were published during the twenty years, 185 8- 1878, half 
of them dealing with the economical conditions of the 
peasants, and the other half with ethnography In Its wider 
sense; and research still continues on the same scale. The 
best of all this movement has been that It has not ended In 
dead material In official publications. Some of the reports, like 
Maximoff's a Year in the North, Siberia and Hard Labour, 
and Tramping Russia^ AfanAsieff {Legends)^ Zhelez- 
noff's Ural Cossacks, Melnikoff's (Petchersky), In 
the Woods and On the Mountains, or Mordovtseff's many 
sketches, were so well written that they were as widely read 
as the best novels; while the dry satlstlcal reports were 
summed up In lively review articles (in Russia the reviews 
are much more bulky, and the articles much longer than in 
England), which were widely read and discussed all over 
the country. Besides, admirable researches dealing with 
special classes of people, regions, and Institutions were made 
by men like PrugAvin, Zasodimskiy, Pyzhoff {History 



232 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

of the Public Houses, which Is In fact a popular history of 
Russia). 

Russian educated society, which formerly hardly knew the 
peasants otherwise than from the balcony of their country 
houses, was thus brought In a few years Into a close Inter- 
course with all divisions of the tolling masses; and It Is easy 
to understand the Influence which this Intercourse exercised, 
not only upon the development of political Ideas, but also 
upon the whole character of Russian literature. 

The idealised novel of the past was now outgrown. The 
representation of " the dear peasants '' as a background for 
opposing their Idyllic virtues to the defects of the educated 
classes was possible no more. The taking of the people as 
a mere material for burlesque tales, as Nicholas Uspenskiy 
and V. A. Slyeptsoff tried to do, enjoyed but a momentary 
success. A new, eminently realistic school of folk-novelists 
was wanted. And the result was the appearance of quite a 
number of writers who broke new ground and, by cultivating 
a very high conception concerning the duties of art in the 
representation of the poorer, uneducated classes, opened, I 
am inclined to think, a new page in the evolution of the 
novel for the literature of all nations. 

POMYALOVSKIY 

The clergy in Russia — that is, the priests, the deacons, the 
cantors, the bell-ringers — represent a separate class which 
stands between " the classes " and *' the masses " — much 
nearer to the latter than to the former. This Is especially true 
as regards the clergy in the villages, and it was still more so 
some fifty years ago. Receiving no salary, the village priest, 
with his deacon and cantors, lived chiefly by the cultivation 
of the land that was attached to the village church; and in 
my youth, in our Central Russia neighbourhood, during the 
hot summer months when they were hay-making or taking in 
the crops, the priest would always hurry through the mass in 
order to return to their field-work. The priest's house was 
in those years a log-house, only a little better built than the 
houses of the peasants, alongside which it stood sometimes 
thatched, instead of being simply covered with straw, that is, 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 233 

held in position by means of straw ropes. His dress differed 
from that of the peasants more by its cut than by the ma- 
terials it was made of, and between the church services and 
the fulfilment of his parish duties the priest might always be 
seen in the fields, following the plough or working in the 
meadows with the scythe. 

All the children of the clergy receive free education In 
special clerical schools, and later on, some of them, in 
seminaries; and it was by the description of the abominable 
educational methods which prevailed In these schools in 
the forties and fifties that Pomyalovskiy (1835-1863) 
acquired his notoriety. He was the son of a poor deacon 
in a village near St. Petersburg, and had himself passed 
through one of these schools and a seminary. Both the lower 
and the higher schools were then In the hands of quite unedu- 
cated priests — chiefly monks — and the most absurd learning 
by rote of the most abstract theology was the rule. The 
general moral tone of the schools was extremely low, drink- 
ing went on to excess, and flogging for every lesson not 
recited by heart, sometimes two or three times a day, with 
all sorts of refinements of cruelty — was the chief Instru- 
ment of education. Pomyalovskiy passionately loved his 
younger brother and wanted at all hazards to save him from 
such an experience as his own; so he began to write for a 
pedagogical review, on the education given in the clerical 
schools, in order to get the means to educate his brother In 
a gymnasium. A most powerful novel, evidently taken from 
real life in these schools, followed, and numbers of priests, 
who had themselves been the victims of a like " education," 
wrote to the papers to confirm what Pomyalovskiy had said. 
Truth, without any decoration, naked truth, with an absolute 
negation of art for art's sake, were the distinctive features 
of Pomyalovskiy, who went so far In this direction as even 
to part with the so-called heroes. The men whom he described 
were not sharply outlined types, but, if I may be permitted 
to express myself In this way, the " neutral-tint '' types of 
real life: those Indefinite, not too good and not too bad 
characters of whom mankind Is mostly composed, and whose 
Inertia is everywhere the great obstacle to progress. 

Besides his sketches from the life of the clerical schools, 



234 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Pomyalovskly wrote also two novels from the life of the 
poorer middle classes : Philistine Happiness, and Molotoff — 
which is autobiographic to a great extent — and an unfinished 
larger novel, Brother and Sister, He displayed In these works 
the same broad humanitarian spirit as Dostoyevskiy had for 
noticing humane redeeming features In the most degraded 
men and women, but with the sound realistic tendency which 
made the distinctive feature of the young literary school of 
which he was one of the founders. And he depicted also, In 
an extraordinarily powerful and tragic manner, the hero 
from the poorer classes — who Is Imbued with hatred towards 
the upper classes and toward all forms of social life which 
exist for their advantage — and yet has not the faith in his 
own possibilities, which knowledge gives, and which a real 
force always has. Therefore this hero ends, either In a phllls- 
tine family Idyll, or, this failing, In a propaganda of reckless 
cruelty and of contempt towards all mankind, as the only 
possible foundation for personal happiness. 

These novels were full of promise, and Pomyalovskly was 
looked upon as the future leader of a new school of litera- 
ture; but he died, even before he had reached the age of 
thirty. 

RYESHETNIKOFF 

Ryeshetnikoff ( 1 841-187 1 ) went still further in the 
same direction, and, with Pomyalovskly, he may be con- 
sidered as the founder of the ultra-realistic school of Russian 
folk-novelists. He was born In the Urals and was the son of 
a poor church cantor who became a postman. The family was 
In extreme poverty. An uncle took him to the town of Perm, 
and there he was beaten and thrashed all through his child- 
hood. When he was ten years old they sent him to a 
miserable clerical school, where he was treated even worse 
than at his uncle^s. He ran away, but was caught, and they 
flogged the poor child so awfully that he had to He in a 
hospital for two months. As soon as he was taken back to 
school he ran away a second time, joining a band of tramp- 
ing beggars. He suffered terribly during his peregrinations 
with them, and was caught once more, and again flogged in 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 235 

the most barbarous way. His uncle also was a postman, and 
Ryeshetnlkoff, having nothing to read, used to steal news- 
papers from the Post Office, and after reading them, he de- 
stroyed them. This was, however, discovered, the boy having 
destroyed some important Imperial manifesto addressed to 
the local authorities. He was brought before a Court and 
condemned to be sent to a monastery for a few months (there 
were no reformatories then). The monks were kind to him, 
but they led a most dissolute life, drinking excessively, over- 
eating, and stealing away from the monastery at night, and 
they taught the boy to drink. In spite of all this, after his 
release from the monastery Ryeshetnikoff passed brilliantly 
the examinations in the district school, and was received as 
a clerk In the Civil Service, at a salary of six shillings, and 
later on, half-a-gulnea per month. This meant, of course, the 
most wretched poverty, because the young man took no 
bribes, as all clerks In those times were accustomed to do. 
The arrival of a " revlsor " at Perm saved him. This gentle- 
man employed Ryeshetnlkoff as a copyist, and, having come 
to like him, gave him the means to move to St. Petersburg, 
where he found him a position as clerk In the Ministry of 
Finance at almost double his former salary. Ryeshetnlkoff 
had begun to write already, at Perm, and he continued to do 
so at St. Petersburg, sending contributions to some of the 
lesser newspapers, until he made the acquaintance of Nekra- 
soff. Then he published his novel, Podlipovtsy, In The Con- 
temporary {Ceux de Podlipna'ia, In a French translation). 

Ryeshetnlkoff's position In literature Is quite unique. " The 
sound truth of Ryeshetnlkoff " — In these words Turgue- 
neff characterised his writings. It is truth. Indeed, nothing 
but truth, without any attempt at decoration or lyric effects 
— a sort of diary In which the men with whom the author 
lived in the mining works of the Urals, In his Permian village, 
or In the slums of St. Petersburg, are described. " Podli- 
povtsy " means the inhabitants of a small village Podlipnaya, 
lost somewhere In the mountains of the Urals. They are 
Permlans, not yet quite Russified, and are still In the stage 
which so many populations of the Russian Empire are living 
through nowadays — namely the early agricultural. Few of 
them have for more than two months a year pure rye-bread 



236 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

to eat: the remaining ten months they are compelled to 
add the bark of trees to their flour in order to have " bread " 
at all. They have not the slightest idea of what Russia is, 
or of the State, and very seldom do they see a priest. They 
hardly know how to cultivate the land. They do not know 
how to make a stove, and periodical starvation during the 
months from January to July has taken the very soul and 
heart out of them. They stand on a lower level than real 
savages. 

One of their best men, Pila, knows how to count up 
to fivtj but the others are unable to do so. Pila's concep- 
tions of space and time are of the most primitive descrip- 
tion, and yet this Pila is a born leader of his semi-savage 
village people, and is continually making something for them. 
He tells them when it is time to plough; he tries to find a 
sale for their small domestic industries; he knows how to 
go to the next town, and when there is anything to be done 
there, he does it. His relations with his family, which consists 
of an only daughter, Aproska, are at a stage belonging to 
prehistorical anthropology, and yet he and his friend Sysoi 
love that girl Aproska so deeply, that after her death they 
are ready to kill themselves. They abandon their village to 
lead the hard life of boatmen on the river, dragging the 
heavy boats up the current. But these semi-savages are deeply 
human, and one feels that they are so, not merely because 
the author wants It, but in reality; and one cannot read the 
story of their lives and the sufferings which they endure, with 
the resignation of a patient beast, without being moved at 
times even more deeply than by a good novel from our own 
life. 

Another novel of Ryeshetnlkoff, The Glumoffs, Is perhaps 
one of the most depressing novels In this branch of literature. 
There is nothing striking In It — no misfortunes, no calami- 
ties, no dramatic effects; but the whole life of the Ironworkers 
of the Urals, who are described In this novel. Is so gloomy, 
there Is so little possibility of possible escape from this 
gloominess, that sheer despair seizes you, as you gradually 
realise the Immobility of the life which this novel represents. 
In Among Men Ryeshetnikoff tells the story of his own 
terrible childhood. As to his larger two-volume novel — 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 237 

Where is It Better? — it is an interminable string of misfor- 
tunes which befell a woman of the poorer classes, who came 
to St. Petersburg in search of work. We have here (as well 
as in another long novel, Otie^s Own Bread) the same shape- 
lessness and the same absence of strongly depicted characters 
as in The Glumofs, and we receive the same gloomy im- 
pression. 

The literary defects of all Ryeshetnikoff's work are only 
too evident. Yet in spite of them, he may claim to be con- 
sidered as the initiator of a new style of novel, which has its 
artistic value, notwithstanding its want of form and the ultra- 
realism of both its conception and structure. Ryeshetnikoff 
certainly could not inspire a school of imitators; but he has 
given hints to those who came after him as to what must be 
done to create the true folk-novel, and what must be avoided. 
There is not the slightest trace of romanticism in his work; no 
heroes; nothing but that great, indifferent, hardly individual- 
ised crowd, among which there are no striking colours, no 
giants; all is small; all interests are limited to a microscopi- 
cally narrow neighbourhood. In fact, they all centre round 
the all-dominating question, Where to get food and shelter, 
even at the price of unbearable toil. Every person described 
has, of course, his individuality; but all these individualities 
are merged into one single desire: that of finding a living 
which shall not be sheer misery — shall not consist of days of 
well-being alternating with days of starvation. How lessen 
the hardships of work which is beyond a man's forces ? how 
find a place in the world where work shall not be done amid 
such degrading conditions? these questions make the unan- 
imity of purpose among all these men and women. 

There are, I have just said, no heroes in Ryeshetnikoff's 
novels: that means, no " heroes " in our usual literary sense; 
but you see before you real Titans — real heroes in the 
primitive sense of the word — heroes of endurance — such as 
the species must produce when, a shapeless crowd, it bitterly 
struggles against frost and hunger. The way in which these 
heroes support the most incredible physical privations as 
they tramp from one part of Russia to another, or have to 
face the most cruel deceptions in their search for work — the 
way they struggle for existence — is already striking enough ; 



238 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

but the way In which they die, Is perhaps even more striking. 
Many readers remember, of course, Tolstoy's Three Deaths: 
the lady dying from consumption, and cursing her illness, the 
peasant who in his last hours thinks of his boots, and directs 
to whom they shall be given, so that they may go to the toiler 
most in need of them; and the third — the death of the birch 
tree. For Ryeshetnikoff's heroes, who live all their lives with- 
out being sure of bread for the morrow, death is not a catas- 
trophe: it simply means less and less force to get one's 
food, less and less energy to chew one's dry piece of bread, 
less and less bread, less oil In the lamp — and the lamp is 
blown out. 

Another most terrible thing In Ryeshetnikoff's novels Is 
his picture of how the habit of drunkenness takes possession 
of men. You see It coming — see how It must come, organ- 
ically, necessarily, fatally — how It takes possession of the 
man, and how It holds him till his death. This Shakespearian 
fatalism applied to drink — whose workings are only too well 
known to those who know popular life — Is perhaps the most 
terrible feature of Ryeshetnikoff's novels. Especially Is it 
apparent In The Glumoffs, where you see how the teacher in 
a mining town, because he refuses to join the administration 
in the exploitation of children, is deprived of all means of liv- 
ing and although he marries in the long run a splendid 
woman, sinks at last into the clutches of the demon of habitual 
drunkenness. Only the women do not drink, and that saves 
the race from utter destruction; In fact, nearly every one of 
Ryeshetnikoff's women is a heroine of persevering labour, 
of struggle for the necessities of life, as the female is in the 
whole animal world; and such the women are in real popular 
life in Russia. 

If It Is very difficult to avoid romantic sentlmentalism, 
when the author who describes the monotony of the everyday 
life of a middle-class crowd intends to make the reader sym- 
pathise nevertheless with this crowd, the difficulties are still 
greater when he descends a step lower in the social scale and 
deals with peasants, or, still worse, with those who belong to 
the lowest strata of city life. The most realistic writers have 
fallen into sentimentalism and romanticism when they 
attempted to do this. Even Zola in his last novel, fVork, 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 239 

falls into the trap. But that is precisely what Ryeshetnikoff 
never did. His writings are a violent protest against aesthet- 
ics, and even against all sorts of conventional art. He was a 
true child of the epoch characterised by Turgueneff in Bazar- 
off. "I do not care for the form of my writings: truth 
will speak for itself," he seems to say to his readers. He 
would have felt ashamed if, even unconsciously, he had 
resorted an^^here to dramatic effects in order to touch 
his readers — just as the public speaker who entirely relies 
upon the beauty of the thought he develops would feel 
ashamed if some merely oratorical expression escaped his lips. 
For myself, I think that a great creative genius was 
required in order to pick, as Ryeshetnikoff did, out of the 
everyday, monotonous life of the crowd, those trifling expres- 
sions, those exclamations, those movements expressive of 
some feelings or some idea without which his novels would 
have been quite unreadable. It has been remarked by one 
of our critics that when you begin to read a novel of Rye- 
shetnikoff you seem to have plunged into a chaos. You have 
the description of a commonplace landscape, which, in fact, 
is no " landscape " at all; then the future hero or heroine of 
the novel appears, and he or she is a person whom you may 
see in every crowd — with no claims to rise above this crowd, 
with hardly anything even to distinguish him or her from the 
crowd. This hero speaks, eats, drinks, works, swears, as 
everyone else in the crowd does. He is not a chosen creature 
— he is not a demoniacal character — a Richard III. in a 
fustian jacket; nor is she a Cordelia or even a Dickens' 
" Nell." Ryeshetnikoff's men and women are exactly like 
thousands of men and women around them; but gradually, 
owing to those very scraps of thought, to an exclamation, 
to a word dropped here and there, or even to a slight move- 
ment that is mentioned — you begin to feel interested in them. 
After thirty pages you feel that you are already decidedly in 
sympathy with them and you are so captured that you read 
pages and pages of these chaotic details with the sole pur- 
pose of solving the question which begins passionately to 
interest you: Will Peter or Anna find to-day the piece of 
bread which they long to have? Will Mary get the work 
which might procure her a pinch of tea for her sick and 



240 . RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

half crazy mother? Will the woman Praskovia freeze dur- 
ing that bitterly cold night when she Is lost in the streets of 
St. Petersburg or will she be taken at last to a hospital where 
she may have a warm blanket and cup of tea? Will the post- 
man abstain from the " fire-water/' and will he get a situa- 
tion, or not? 

Surely, to obtain this result with such unconventional 
means reveals a very great talent; It means, to possess that 
power of moving one's readers — of making them love and 
hate — which makes the very essence of literary talent; and 
this is why those shapeless, and much too long, and much 
too dreary novels of Ryeshetnikoff make a landmark In Rus- 
sian literature, and are the precursors not only of a Gorkiy, 
but, most surely, of a greater talent still. 

LEVITOFF 

Another folk-novelist of the same generation was Levit- 
OFF (1835 or 1842-1877). He described chiefly those 
portions of southern Middle Russia which are in the border- 
land between the wooded parts of the country and the tree- 
less prairies. His life was extremely sad. He was born in 
the family of a poor country priest in a village of the 
province of Tambof, and was educated in a clerical school of 
the type described by Pomyalovskly. When he was only six- 
teen he went on foot to Moscow, In order to enter the univer- 
sity, and then moved to St. Petersburg. There he was soon 
involved In some " students' affair," and was exiled, In 
1858, to Shenkursk, in the far north, and next removed to 
Vologda. Here he lived in complete isolation from every- 
thing intellectual, and in awful poverty verging on starvation. 
Not until three years later was he allowed to return to 
Moscow, and, being absolutely penniless, he made all the 
journey from Vologda to Moscow on foot, earning occasion- 
ally a few shillings by clerical work done for the cantonal 
Board of some village. These years of exile left a deep trace 
upon all his subsequent life, which he passed in extreme 
poverty, never finding a place where he could settle, and 
drowning in drink the sufferings of a loving, restless soul. 

During his early childhood he was deeply impressed by 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 241 

the charm and quiet of village life in the prairies, and he 
wrote later on: " This quietness of village life passes before 
me, or rather flies, as something really living, as a well defined 
image. Yes, I distinctly see above our daily life in the village, 
somebody gliding — a little above the cross of our church, 
together with the light clouds — somebody light and soft of 
outline, having the mild and modest face of our prairie girls. 
"... Thus, after many years spent amidst the untold 
sufferings of my present existence, do I represent to myself 
the genius of country life." 

The charm of the boundless prairies of South Russia — the 
Steppes — is so admirably rendered by Levitoff that no Rus- 
sian author has surpassed him in the poetical description 
of their nature, excepting Koltsoff in his poetry. Levitoff 
was a pure flower of the Steppes, full of the most poetical 
love of his birthplace, and he certainly must have suffered 
deeply when he was thrown amidst the intellectual proleta- 
rians in the great, cold, and egotistic capital of the Neva. 
Whenever he stayed at St. Petersburg or at Moscow he 
always lived in the poorest quarters, somewhere on the out- 
skirts of the town : they reminded him of his native village ; 
and when he thus settled amongst the lowest strata of the 
population, he did so, as he wrote himself, " to run away 
from the moral contradictions, the artificiality of life, the 
would-be humanitarianism, and the cut and dried imaginary 
superiority of the educated classes." He could not live, for 
even a couple of months in succession, in relative well-being : 
he began to feel the gnawings of conscience, and it ended in 
his leaving behind his extremely poor belongings and going 
somewhere — anywhere where he would be poorer still, 
amidst other poor who live from hand to mouth. 

I do not even know if I am right in describing Levitoff's 
works as novels. They are more like shapeless, lyrical-epical 
improvisations in prose. Only in these improvisations we have 
not the usual hackneyed presentment of the writer's com- 
passion for other people's sufferings. It is an epical descrip- 
tion of what the author has lived through in his close contact 
with all classes of people of the poorest sort, and its lyric 
element is the sorrow that he himself knew — not in imagina- 
tion — as he lived that same life; the sorrow of want, of 



242 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

family troubles, of hopes unsatisfied, of Isolation, of all sorts 
of oppression, and of all sorts of human weakness. The pages 
which he has given to the feelings of the drunken man and 
to the ways In which this disease — drunkenness — takes pos- 
session of men, are something really terrible. Of course, he 
died young — from an inflammation of the lungs caught one 
day In January, as he went In an old summer coat to get 
ten shillings from some petty editor at the other end of 
Moscow. 

The best known work of Levitoff Is a volume of Sketches 
from the Steppes; but he has also written scenes from the 
life of the towns, under the title of Moscow Dens and Slums, 
Street Sketches, etc., and a volume to which some of his 
friends must have given the title of Sorrows of the Villages, 
the High Roads, and the Towns. In the second of these 
works we find a simply terrifying collection of tramps and 
outcasts of the large cities — of men sunk to the lowest level 
of city slum-life, represented without the slightest attempt at 
idealising them — and yet deeply human. Sketches from the 
Steppes remains his best work. It is a collection of poems, 
written in prose, full of the most admirable descriptions of 
prairie nature and of tiny details from the life of the peasants, 
with all their petty troubles, their habits, customs, and super- 
stitions. Plenty of personal reminiscences are scattered 
through these sketches, and one often finds in them a scene of 
children playing in the meadows of the prairies and living 
in accordance with the life of nature, in which every little 
trait is pictured with a warm, tender love; and almost every- 
where one feels the unseen tears of sorrow, shed by the 
author. 

Amongst the several sketches of the life and work of 
Levitoff there is one — written with deep feeling and con- 
taining charming idyllic features from his childhood as well 
as a terrible account of his later years — by A. Skabitchevskiy, 
in his History of Modern Russian Literature. 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 243 

GLEB USPENSKIY 

Gleb Uspenskiy (1840- 1 902) widely differs from all 
the preceding writers. He represents a school in himself, and 
I know of no writer In any literature with whom he might be 
compared. Properly speaking, he Is not a novelist; but his 
work Is not enthnography or demography either, because It 
contains, besides descriptions belonging to the domain of 
folk-psychology, all the elements of a novel. His first produc- 
tions were novels with a leaning towards ethnography. Thus, 
Ruin Is a novel in which Uspenskiy admirably described how 
all the life of a small provincial town, which had flourished 
under the habits and manners of serfdom, went to ruin after 
the abolition of that institution: but his later productions, 
entirely given to village life, and representing the full matu- 
rity of his talent, had more the character of ethnographic 
sketches, written by a gifted novelist, than of novels proper. 
They began like novels. Different persons appear before you 
in the usual way, and gradually you grow Interested in their 
doings and their life. Moreover, they are not offered you 
haphazard, as they would be in the diary of an ethnographer; 
they have been chosen by the author because he considers 
them typical of those aspects of village life which he Intends 
to deal with. However, the author is not satisfied with merely 
acquainting the reader with these types: he soon begins to 
discuss them and to talk about their position in village life 
and the Influence they must exercise upon the future of the 
village ; and, being already Interested In the people, you read 
the discussions with interest. Then some admirable scene, 
which would not be out of place in a novel of Tolstoy or Tur- 
gueneff, is Introduced; but after a few pages of such artistic 
creation Uspenskiy becomes again an ethnographer discuss- 
ing the future of the village-community. He was too much 
of a political writer to always think in images and to be a 
pure novelist, but he was also too passionately impressed by 
the individual facts which came under his observation to 
calmly discuss them, as the merely political writer would do. 
In spite of all this, notwithstanding this mixture of political 
literature with art, because of his artistic gifts, you read 
Uspenskiy just as you read a good novelist. 



244 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Every movement among the educated classes in favour of 
the poorer classes begins by an Idealisation of the latter. It 
being necessary to clear away, first of all, a number of prej- 
udices which exist among the rich as regards the poor, some 
idealisation Is unavoidable. Therefore, the earlier folk-novel- 
ist takes only the most striking types — those whom the 
wealthier people can better understand and sympathise with; 
and he lightly passes over the less sympathetic features of the 
life of the poor. This was done in the forties in France and 
England, and In Russia by Grigorovltch, Marko Vovtchok, 
and several others. Then came Ryeshetnikoff with his artistic 
Nihilism: with his negation of all the usual tricks of art, and 
his objectivism; his blunt refusal to create " types " and his 
preference for the quite ordinary man ; his manner of trans- 
mitting to you his love of his people, merely through the sup- 
pressed Intensity of his own emotion. Later on, new problems 
arose for Russian literature. The readers were now quite 
ready to sympathise with the individual peasant or factory 
worker; but they wanted to know something more: namely, 
what were the very foundations, the Ideals, the springs of 
village life ? what were they worth In the further development 
of the nation? what, and in what form, could the Immense 
agricultural population of Russia contribute to the further 
development of the country and the civilised world 
altogether? All such questions could not be answered by the 
statistician alone ; they required the genius of the artist, who 
must decipher the reply out of the thousands of small Indica- 
tions and facts, and our folk-novelists understood this new 
demand of the reader. A rich collection of individual peasant 
types having already been given, it was now the life of the 
village — the mir, with Its advantages and drawbacks, and Its 
promises for the future — that the readers were anxious to 
find in the folk-novel. These were the questions which the 
new generation of folk-novelists undertook to discuss. 

In this venture they were certainly right. It must not be 
forgotten that In the last analysis every economical and 
social question is a question of psychology of both the indi- 
vidual and the social aggregation. It cannot be solved 
by arithmetic alone. Therefore, in social science, as in 
human pyschology, the poet often sees his way better than 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 245 

the physiologist. At any rate, he too has his voice in the 
matter. 

When Uspenskiy began writing his first sketches of village 
life — it was in the early seventies — Young Russia was in the 
grip of the great movement " towards the people," and it 
must be owned that in this movement, as in every other, there 
was some idealisation. Those who did not know village-life at 
all cherished exaggerated, idyllic illusions about the village- 
community. In all probability Uspenskiy, who was born in a 
large industrial town, Tula, in the family of a small function- 
ary and hardly knew country life at all, shared these illusions 
to some extent, very probably in their most extreme aspect; 
and still preserving them he went to a province of southeast- 
ern Russia, Samara, which had lately become the prey of 
modern commercialism, and where, owing to a number of 
peculiar circumstances, the abolition of serfdom had been ac- 
complished under conditions specially ruinous to the peasants 
and to village-life altogether. Here he must have suffered 
intensely from seeing his youthful dreams vanishing; and, as 
artists often do, he hastened to generalise ; but he had not the 
education of the thorough ethnographer, which might have 
prevented him from making too hasty ethnological general- 
isations from his limited materials, and he began to write a 
series of scenes from village-life, imbued with a deep pessim- 
ism. It was only much later on, while staying in a village of 
Northern Russia, in the province of Novgorod, that he came 
to understand the influences which the culture of the land 
and life in an agricultural village may exercise upon the tiller 
of the soil; then only had he some glimpses of what are the 
social and moral forces of land cultivation and communal 
life, and of what free labour on a free soil might be. These 
observations inspired Uspenskiy with perhaps the best thing 
he wrote. The Power of the Soil ( 1882) . It will remain, at 
any rate, his most important contribution in this domain — 
the artist appearing here in all the force of his talent and in 
his true function of explaining the inner springs of a certain 
mood of life. 



246 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

zlatovrAtskiy and other folk-novelists 

One of the great questions of the day for Russia is, 
whether we shall abolish the communal ownership of the 
land, as it has been abolished In Western Europe, and intro- 
duce instead of it individual peasant proprietorship; or 
whether we shall endeavour to retain the village community, 
and do our best to develop it further in the direction of co- 
operative associations, both agricultural and Industrial. A 
great struggle goes on accordingly among the educated classes 
of Russia upon this question, and in his first Samara sketches, 
entitled From a Village Diary, Uspenskly paid a great deal 
of attention to this subject. He tried to prove that the village 
community, such as it Is, results In a formidable oppression 
of the individual, in a hampering of Individual Initiative, in 
all sorts of oppression of the poorer peasants by the richer 
ones, and, consequently. In general poverty. He omitted, how- 
ever, all the arguments which these same poorer peasants, 
if they should be questioned, would bring forward in favour 
of the present communal ownership of the land; and he 
attributed to this institution what is the result of other general 
causes, as may be seen from the fact that exactly the same 
poverty, the same inertia, and the same oppression of the 
individual, are found in an even greater degree in Little 
Russia, where the village community has ceased to exist long 
since. Uspenskly thus expressed — at least In those sketches 
which dealt with the villages of Samara — the views which 
prevail among the middle classes of Western Europe, and 
are current in Russia among the growing village bourgeoisie. 

This attitude called forth a series of replies from another 
folk-novelist of an equally great talent, ZlatovrAtskiy 
(born 1845), who answered each sketch of Uspenskly 's by 
a novel In which he took the extreme opposite view. He had 
known peasant life in Middle Russia from his childhood; 
and the less Illusions he had about It, the better was he able, 
when he began a serious study of the peasants, to see the good 
features of their lives, and to understand those types of them 
who take to heart the Interests of the village as a whole — 
types that I also well knew in my youth In the same provinces. 

Zlatovratskiy was accused, of course, of idealising the 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 247 

peasants; but the reality is, that Uspenskiy and Zlatovratskiy 
complement each other. Just as they complement each other 
geographically — the latter speaking for the truly agricultural 
region of Middle Russia, while Uspenskiy spoke for the 
periphery of this region — so also they complement each other 
psychologically. Uspenskiy was right in showing the draw- 
backs of the village community institution — deprived of Its 
vitality by an omnipotent bureaucracy; and Zlatovratskiy 
was quite right, too, In showing what sort of men are never- 
theless bred by the village-communal institutions and by 
attachment to the land, and what services they could render 
to the rural masses under different conditions of liberty and 
independence. 

Zlatovratskiy's novels are thus an important ethnographi- 
cal contribution, and they have at the same time an artistic 
value. His Everyday Life in the Village^ and perhaps even 
more his Peasant Jurymen (since 1864, the peasant heads of 
households have acted In turn as jurors in the law courts), 
are full of the most charming scenes of village-life; while his 
Foundations represents a serious attempt at grasping In a 
work of art the fundamental conceptions of Russian rural 
life. In this last work we also find types of men, who per- 
sonify the revolt of the peasant against both external oppres- 
sion and the submisslveness of the mass to that oppression — 
men, who, under favourable conditions might become the 
initiators of movements of a deep purport. That types have 
not been invented will be agreed by everyone who knows 
Russian village-life from the inside. 

The writers who have been named In the preceding pages 
are far from representing the whole school of folk-novelists. 
Not only has every Russian novelist of the past, from Tur- 
gueneff down, been inspired in some of his work by folk life, 
but some of the best productions of the most prominent con- 
temporary writers, such as Korolenko, Tchehoff, Oertel and 
many others (see next chapter), belong to the same cate- 
gory. There are besides quite a number of novelists dis- 
tinctively of this class, who would be spoken of at some length 
in any course of Russian literature, but whom, unfortunately, 
I am compelled to mention in but a few lines. 



248 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Naumoff was born at Tobolsk (In 1838) and, settling 
in Western Siberia after he had received a university educa- 
tion at St. Petersburg, he wrote a series of short novels and 
sketches In which he described life In West Siberian villages 
and mining towns. These stories were widely read, owing to 
their expressive, truly popular language, the energy with 
which they were imbued, and the striking pictures they con- 
tained of the advantage taken of the poverty of the mass by 
the richer peasants, known In Russia as " wfr-eaters " 
(miroyed) . 

Zasodimskiy (born 1843) belongs to the same period. 
Like many of his contemporaries, he spent years of his youth 
in exile, but he remains still the same *' populist " that he 
was In his youth. Imbued with the same love of the people and 
the same faith In the peasants. His Chronicle of the Village 
Smurino (1874) and Mysteries of the Steppes (1882) are 
especially interesting, because Zasodimskiy made In these 
novels attempts at representing types of intellectual and pro- 
testing peasants, true to life, but usually neglected by our 
folk-novelists. Some of them are rebels who revolt against 
the conditions of village-life, chiefly In their own, personal 
Interest, while others are peaceful religious propagandists, 
and still others are men who have developed under the influ- 
ence of educated propagandists. 

Another writer who excelled In the representation of the 
type of " wfr-eaters " in the villages of European Russia Is 
SAloff ( 1 843-1902). 

PetropAvlovskiy (1857-1892), who wrote under the 
pseudonym of Karonin, was, on the other hand, a real poet 
of village-life and of the cultivation of the fields. He was 
born In southeastern Russia, In the province of Samara, but 
was early exiled to the government of Tobolsk, In Siberia, 
where he was kept many years, and from which he was 
released only to die soon after from consumption. He gave 
in his novels and stories several very dramatic types of 
village " ne'er-do-well's," but the novel which is most typical 
of his talent is My World. In It he tells how an " intellec- 
tual," " rent In twain " and nearly losing his reason in 
consequence of this dualism, finds Inner peace and recon- 
ciliation with life when he settles in a village and works in 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 249 

the same almost superhuman way that the peasants do, when 
hay has to be mown and the crops to be carried In. Thus 
living the life they live, he Is loved by them, and finds a 
healthy and Intelligent girl to love him. This Is, of course, 
to some extent an Idyll of village life; but so slight Is the 
idealisation, as we know from the experience of those " Intel- 
lectuals " who went to the villages as equals coming among 
equals, that the Idyll reads almost as a reality. 

Several more folk-novelists ought to be mentioned. Such 
are L. Melshin (born i860), the pseudonym of an exile 
" P. Ya.," who Is also a poet, and who, having been kept 
for twelve years at hard labour In Siberia as a political con- 
vict, has published two volumes of hard-labour sketches. In 
the World of the Outcasts (a work to put by the side of 
Dostoyevskly's Dead House) ; S. ElpAtievskiy (bom 
1854), also an exile, who has given good sketches of Siberian 
tramps; Nefedoff (1847- 1902), ^^ ethnographr who has 
made valuable scientific researches and at the same time has 
published excellent sketches of factory and village life, and 
whose writings are thoroughly imbued with a deep faith 
in the store of energy and plastic creative power of the 
masses of the country people ; and several others. Every one 
of these writers deserves, however, more than a short notice, 
because each has contributed something, either to the com- 
prehension of this or that class of the people, or to the work- 
ing out of those forms of " idealistic realism " which are 
best suited for dealing with types taken from the toiling 
masses, and which has lately made the literary success of 
Maxim Gorkiy. 

MAXIM GORKIY 

Few writers have established their reputation so rapidly as 
MaxIm Gorkiy. His first sketches (1892-95) were pub- 
lished in an obscure provincial paper of the Caucasus, and 
were totally unknown to the literary world, but when a short 
tale of his appeared in a widely-read review, edited by Koro- 
lenko, it at once attracted general attention. The beauty of 
its form, its artistic finish, and the new note of strength and 
courage which rang through it, brought the young writer 



250 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

immediately into prominence. It became known that ** Maxim 
Gorkiy " was the pseudonym of a quiet young man, A. 
Pyeshkoff, who was born In 1868 In Nijniy Novgorod, a 
large town on the Volga ; that his father was a merchant or an 
artisan, his mother a remarkable peasant woman, who died 
soon after the birth of her son, and that the boy, orphaned 
when only nine, was brought up In a family of his father's 
relatives. The childhood of " Gorkiy " must have been any- 
thing but happy, for one day he ran away and entered into 
service on a Volga river steamer. This took place when he 
was only twelve. Later on he worked as a baker, became a 
street porter, sold apples In a street, till at last he obtained 
the position of clerk at a lawyer's. In 1891 he lived and 
wandered on foot with the tramps In South Russia, and during 
these wanderings he wrote a number of short stories, of which 
the first was publshed in 1892, In a newspaper of Northern 
Caucasia. The stories proved to be remarkably fine, and when 
a collection of all that he had hitherto written was published 
in 1900, In four small volumes, the whole of a large edition 
was sold In a very short time, and the name of Gorkiy took 
its place — to speak of living novelists only — ^by the side of 
those of Korolenko and Tchehoff, Immediately after the name 
of Leo Tolstoy. In Western Europe and America his reputa- 
tion was made with the same rapidity as soon as a couple of 
his sketches were translated Into French and German, and 
re-translated Into English. 

It Is sufficient to read a few of Gorkiy's short stories, for 
instance, Mdlva, or Tchelkdsh, or The Ex-Men, or Twenty- 
Six Men and One Girl, to realise at once the causes of his 
rapidly won popularity. The men and women he describes 
are not heroes : they are the most ordinary tramps or slum- 
dwellers; and what he writes are not novels In the proper 
sense of the word, but merely sketches of life. And yet, In the 
literature of all nations, Including the short stories of Guy 
de Maupassant and Bret Harte, there are few things In 
which such a fine analysis of complicated and struggling 
human feelings is given, such interesting, original, and new 
characters are so well depicted, and human psychology Is 
so admirably Interwoven with a background of nature — 
a calm sea, menacing waves, or endless, sunburnt prairies. 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 251 

In the first-named story you really see the promontory that 
juts out Into *' the laughing waters," that promontory upon 
which the fisherman has pitched his hut; and you understand 
why Malva, the woman who loves him and comes to see 
him every Sunday, loves that spot as much as she does the 
fisherman himself. And then at every page you are struck 
by the quite unexpected variety of fine touches with which 
the love of that strange and complicated nature, Malva, is 
depicted, or by the unforeseen aspects under which both the 
ex-peasant fisherman and his peasant-son appear in the short 
space of a few days. The variety of strokes, refined and 
brutal, tender and terribly harsh, with which Gorkiy pictures 
human feelings Is such that In comparison with his heroes 
the heroes and heroines of our best novelists seem so simple — 
so simplified — just like a flower In European decorative art 
In comparison with a real flower. 

Gorkiy Is a great artist; he Is a poet; but he Is also a 
child of all that long series of folk-novelists whom Russia 
has had for the last half century, and he has utilised their 
experience: he has found at last that happy combination of 
realism with Idealism for which the Russian folk-novelists 
have been striving for so many years. Ryeshetnikoff and his 
school had tried to write novels of an ultra-realistic charac- 
ter without any trace of idealisation. They restrained them- 
selves whenever they felt Inclined to generalise, to create, to 
idealise. They tried to write mere diaries, in which events, 
great and small, important and insignificant, were related with 
an equal exactitude, without even changing the tone of the 
narrative. We have seen that in this way, by dint of their 
talent, they were able to obtain the most poignant effects; 
but like the historian who vainly tries to be ** impartial," 
yet always remains a party man, they had not avoided the 
idealisation which they so much dreaded. They could not 
avoid It. A work of art is always personal ; do what he may, 
the author's sympathies will necessarily appear in his crea- 
tion, and he will always Idealise those who answer to them. 
Grigorovitch and Marko Vovtchok had idealised the all- 
pardoning patience and the all-enduring submisslveness of 
the Russian peasant; and Ryeshetnlkofl had quite uncon- 
sciously, and maybe against his will, idealised the almost 



252 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

supernatural powers of endurance which he had seen in the 
Urals and in the slums of St. Petersburg. Both had idealised 
something: the ultra-realist as well as the romantic. Gorkiy 
must have understood the significance of this; at all events 
he does not object in the least to a certain idealisation. In his 
adherence to truth he is as much of a realist as Ryeshetni- 
koff; but he idealises in the same sense as Turgueneff did 
when he pictured Rudin, Helen, or Bazaroff. He even says 
that we must Idealise, and he chooses for Idealisation the type 
he admired most among those tramps whom he knew — the 
rebel. This made his success; it appeared to be exactly what 
the readers of all nations were unconsciously calling for as 
a relief from the dull mediocrity and absence of strong Indi- 
viduality all about them. 

The stratum of society from which Gorkiy took the heroes 
of his first short stories — and In short stories he appears at 
his best — Is that of the tramps of Southern Russia : men who 
have broken with regular society, who never accept the yoke 
of permanent work, labouring only as long as they want to, 
as " casuals " In the sea-ports on the Black Sea; who sleep 
in doss-houses or In ravines on the outskirts of the cities, and 
tramp In the summer from Odessa to the Crimea, and from 
the Crimea to the prairies of Northern Caucasia, where they 
are always welcome at harvest time. 

That eternal complaint about poverty and bad luck, that 
helplessness and hopelessness which were the dominant notes 
with the early folk-novelists, are totally absent from Gorkly's 
stories. His tramps do not complain. " Everything Is all 
right," one of them says; " no use to whine and complain — 
that would do no good. Live and endure till you are broken 
down, or If you are so already — wait for death. This Is all 
the wisdom In the world — do you understand? " 

Far from his whining and complaining about the hard lot 
of his tramps, a refreshing note of energy and courage, which 
is quite unique In Russian literature, sounds through the 
stories of Gorkiy. His tramps are miserably poor, but they 
*' don't care." They drink, but there Is nothing among them 
nearly approaching the dark drunkenness of despair which we 
saw In Levitoft. Even the most " down-trodden " one of them 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 253 

— far from making a virtue of his helplessness, as Dostoyev- 
skly's heroes always did — dreams of reforming the world 
and making It rich. He dreams of the moment when *' we, 
once ' the poor,' shall vanish, after having enriched the 
Croesuses with the richness of the spirit and the power of 
life." {A Mistake, I, 170.) 

Gorkly cannot stand whining; he cannot bear that self- 
castlgatlon In which other Russian writers so much delight: 
which Turgueneff's sub-Hamlets used to express so poetic- 
ally, of which Dostoyevskly has made a virtue, and of 
which Russia offers such an Infinite variety of examples. 
Gorkly knows the type, but he has no pity for such men. 
Better anything than one of those egotistic weaklings who 
gnaw all the time at their own hearts, compel others to drink 
with them In order to perorate before them about their 
" burning souls " ; those beings, " full of compassion " which, 
however, never goes beyond self-commiseration, and " full 
of love" which Is never anything but self-love. Gorkly knows 
only too well these men who never fail to wantonly ruin the 
lives of those women who trust them ; who do not even stop 
at murder, like Raskolnlkoff, or the brothers Karamazoff, 
and yet whine about the circumstances which have brought 
them to It. "What's all this talk about circumstances! " he 
makes Old Izerghil say. " Everyone makes his own 
circumstances ! I see all sorts of men — but the strong ones — 
where are they? There are fewer and fewer noble men! " 

Knowing how much the Russian " Intellectuals " suffer 
from this disease of whining, knowing how rare among them 
are the aggressive Idealists, the real rebels, and how numer- 
ous on the other hand are the Nezhdanofis (Turguenefi's 
Virgin Soil), even among those "politicals" who march 
with resignation to Siberia, Gorkly does not take his types 
from among " the Intellectuals," for he thinks that they too 
easily become " the prisoners of life." 

In Vdrehka Olesova Gorky expresses all his contempt for 
the average " intellectual " of our own days. He Introduces 
to us the Interesting type of a girl, full of vitality; a most 
primitive creature, absolutely untouched by any ideals of 
liberty and equality, but so full of an intense life, so Inde- 
pendent, so much herself, that one cannot but feel greatly 



254 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

interested in her. She meets with one of those " intellectuals '* 
who know and admire higher ideals, but are weaklings, 
utterly devoid of the nerve of life. Of course, Varenka laughs 
at the very idea of such a man's falling in love with her; and 
these are the expressions in which Gorkiy makes her define 
the usual hero of Russian novels : 

"The Russian hero is always silly and stupid," she says; "he is 
always sick of something; always thinking about something that can- 
not be understood, and is himself so miserable, so mi-i-serable ! He will 
think, think, then talk, then he will go and make a declaration of love, 
and after that he thinks, and thinks again, till he marries. 
And when he is married, he talks all sorts of nonsense to his wife, 
and then abandons her." {Varenka Olesova, II, 281.) 

Gorkiy's favourite type is the " rebel " — the man in full 
revolt against Society, but at the same time a strong man, a 
power; and as he has found among the tramps with whom 
he has lived at least the embryo of this type, it is from this 
stratum of society that he takes his most interesting heroes. 

In Konovdlof Gorkiy himself gives the psychology, or, 
rather, a partial psychology, of his tramp hero : — " An 
* intellectual ' amongst those whom fate has ill-used — 
amongst the ragged, the hungry and embittered half-men 
and half-beasts with whom the city slums teem." — " Usually 
a being that can be included in no order," the man who has 
*' been torn from all his moorings, who is hostile to every- 
thing and ready to turn upon anything the force of his angry, 
embittered scepticism" (II, 23). His tramp feels that he 
has been defeated in life, but he does not seek excuse in 
circumstances. Konovaloff, for instance, will not admit the 
theory which is in such vogue among the educated ne'er-do- 
well, namely, that he is the sad product of adverse condi- 
tions. " One must be faint-hearted indeed," he says, " to 
become such a man." " I live, and something goads me 
on " . . . but " I have no inner line to follow. ... do you 
understand me ? I don't know how to say it. I have not that 
spark in my soul, . . . force, perhaps ? Something is missing ; 
that's all! " And when his young friend who has read in 
books all sorts of excuses for weakness of character men- 
tions " the dark hostile forces round you," Konovaloff 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 255 

retorts: "Then make a stand! take a stronger footing! 
find your ground, and make a stand! " 

Some of Gorkiy's tramps are, of course, philosophers. 
They think about human life, and have had opportunities 
to know what it is. " Everyone," he remarks somewhere, 
'* who has had a struggle to sustain in his life, and has been 
defeated by life, and now feels cruelly imprisoned amidst 
its squalor, is more of a philosopher than Schopenhauer him- 
self; for abstract thought can never be cast into such a 
correct and vivid plastic form as that in which is expressed 
the thought born directly out of suffering." (I, p. 31.) " The 
knowledge of life among such men Is striking," he says 
again. 

Love of nature is, of course, another characterstic feature 
of the tramp — *' Konovaloff loved nature with a deep, 
inarticulate love, which was betrayed only by a glitter in 
his eyes. Every time he was in the fields, or on the river 
bank, he became permeated with a sort of peace and love 
which made him still more like a child. Sometimes he would 
exclaim looking at the sky : * Good ! ' and in this exclama- 
tion there was more sense and feeling than in the rhetoric 
of many poets. . . . Like all the rest, poetry loses its holy 
simplicity and spontaneity when it becomes a profession." 

(1-33-4.) 

However, Gorkly's rebel-tramp Is not a NItzschelte who 
ignores everything beyond his narrow egotism, or imagines 
himself a " man "; the " diseased ambition " of " an intel- 
lectual " Is required to create the true Nitzscheite type. In 
Gorkly's tramps, as in his women of the lowest class, there 
are flashes of greatness of character and a simplicity which 
Is Incompatible with the super-man's self-conceit. He does 
not idealise them so as to make of them real heroes; that 
would be too untrue to life: the tramp is still a defeated 
being. But he shows how among these men, owing to an 
Inner consciousness of strength, there are moments of great- 
ness, even though that Inner force be not strong enough to 
make out of Orloff (In The Orlofs) or Iliya (In The Three) 
a real power, a real hero — the man who fights against those 
much stronger than himself. He seems to say: Why are not 
you, Intellectuals, as truly " individual," as frankly rebellious 



2s6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

against the Society you criticise, and as strong as some of 
these submerged ones are ? 

In his short stories Gorkiy is great; but like his two 
contemporaries, Korolenko and Tchehoff, whenever he has 
tried to write a longer novel, with a full development of 
characters, he has not succeeded. Taken as a whole, Fomd 
Gordeeff, notwithstanding several beautiful and deeply Im- 
pressive scenes. Is weaker than most of Gorkly's short stories; 
and while the first portion of The Three — the Idyllic life of 
the three young people, and the tragical issues foreshadowed 
in it — makes us expect to find in this novel one of the finest 
productions In Russian literature — Its end Is disappointing. 
The French translator of The Three has even preferred to 
terminate It abruptly, at the point where Illya stands on the 
grave of the man whom he has killed, rather than to give 
Gorkly's end of the novel. 

Why Gorkiy should fail In this direction is, of course, too 
delicate and too difficult a question to answer. One cause, 
however, may be suggested. Gorkiy, like Tolstoy, Is too 
honest an artist to " Invent " an end which the real lives of 
his heroes do not suggest to him, although that end might 
have been very picturesque; and the class of men whom he 
so admirably depicts Is not possessed of that consistency and 
that " oneness " which are necessary to render a work of 
art perfect and to give it that final accord without which it 
is never complete. 

Take, for Instance, Orloff In The Orloffs. " My soul burns 
within me," he says. " I want space, to give full swing to 
my strength. I feel within me an Indomitable force! If the 
cholera, let us say, could become a man, a giant — were It Illya 
Muromets himself — I would meet It ! ' Let It be a struggle 
to the death,' I would say; ' you are a force, and I, Grishka 
Orloff, am a force, too : let us see which Is the better ! ' " 

But that power, that force does not last. Orloff says some- 
where that " he is torn In all directions at once," and that 
his fate Is to be — not a fighter of giants, but merely a tramp. 
And so he ends. Gorkiy is too great an artist to make of him 
a giant-killer. It Is the same with Illya In The Three. This 
Is a powerful type, and one feels Inclined to ask. Why did not 
Gorkiy make him begin a new life under the Influence of 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 257 

those young propagandists of socialism whom he meets? 
Why should he not die, let us say, In one of those encounters 
between workingmen on strike and soldiers which took place 
in Russia precisely at the time Gorkly was finishing this 
novel? But here, too, Gorkly's reply probably would be that 
such things do not happen In real life. Men, like Illya, who 
dream only of the " clean life of a merchant," do not join 
In labour movements. And he preferred to give a very dis- 
appointing end to his hero — to make him appear miserable 
and small in his attack upon the wife of the police-officer, so 
as to turn the reader's sympathies towards even this woman 
— rather than to make of Iliya a prominent figure in a strike- 
conflict. If it had been possible to idealise Iliya so much, 
without over-straining the permissible limits of idealisation, 
Gorkiy probably would have done It, because he is entirely 
in favour of Idealisation in realistic art; but this would have 
been pure romanticism. 

Over and over again he returns to the Idea of the necessity 
of an ideal in the work of the novel-writer. " The cause of 
the present opinion (in Russian Society) Is," he says, "the 
neglect of idealism. Those who have exiled from life all 
romanticism have stripped us so as to leave us quite naked: 
this is why we are so uninteresting to one another, and so 
disgusted with one another." {A Mistake, I. 151.) And In 
The Reader (1898), he develops his aesthetic canons in full. 
He tells how one of his earliest productions, on its appear- 
ance In print, is read one night before a circle of friends. He 
receives many compliments for it, and after leaving the 
house is tramping along a deserted street, feeling for the 
first time in his existence the happiness of life, when a person 
unknown to him, and whom he had not noticed among those 
present at the reading, overtakes him, and begins to talk 
about the duties of the author. 

" You will agree with me," the stranger says, " that the duty of 
literature is to aid man in understanding himself, to raise his faith in 
himself, to develop his longing for truth; to combat what is bad in 
men ; to find what is good in them, and to wake up in their souls 
shame, anger, courage, to 'do everything, in short, to render men 
strong In a noble sense of the word, and capable of inspiring their 
lives with the holy spirit of beauty." (Ill, 271.) *' It seems to me, we 



258 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

need once more to have dreams, pretty creations of our fancy and 
visions, because the life we have built up is poor in colour, is dim and 
dull. . . . Well, let us try, perhaps imagination will help man 
to rise for a moment above the earth and find his true place on it, 
which he has lost." (245.) 

» But further on Gorkiy makes a confession which explains 
perhaps why he has not yet succeeded In creating a longer 
character-novel: " I discovered In myself," he says, *' many 
good feelings and desires — a fair proportion of what is 
usually called good ; but a feeling which could unify all this — 
a well-founded, clear thought, embracing all the phenomena 
of life — I did not find In myself." And on reading this, one 
at once thinks of Turgueneff, who saw In such a " freedom," 
in such a unified comprehension of the universe and its life, 
the first condition for being a great artist. 

" Can you," the Reader goes on to ask, " create for men ever so 
small an illusion that has the power to raise them? No!" "All of 
you teachers of the day take more than you give, because you speak 
only about faults — you see only those. But there must also be good 
qualities in men: you possess some, don't you? . . . Don't you 
notice that owing to your continual efforts to define and to classify 
them, the virtues and the vices have been entangled like two balls of 
black and white thread which have become grey by taking colour from 
each other? " . . . "I doubt whether God has sent you on earth. 
If he had sent messengers, he would have chosen stronger men than 
you are. He would have lighted in them the fire of a passionate love 
of life, of truth, of men." 

" Nothing but everyday life, everyday life, only everyday people, 
everyday thoughts and events!" the same pitiless Reader continues. 
" When will you, then, speak of * the rebel spirit,' of the necessity of 
a new birth of the spirit? Where is, then, the calling to the creation 
of a new life? where the lessons of courage? where the words which 
would give wings to the soul? " 

*' Confess you don't know how to represent life, so that your pic- 
tures of it shall provoke in a man a redemptive spirit of shame and a 
burning desire of creating new forms of life. . . . Can you 
accelerate the pulsation of life? Can you inspire it with energy, as 
others have done? " 

"I see many intelligent men round about me, but few noble ones 
among them, and these few are broken and suffering souls. I don't 
know why it should be so, but so it is: the better the man, the cleaner 



FOLK-NOVELISTS 259 

and the more honest his soul, the less energy he has; the more he 
suffers and the harder is his life. . . . But although they suffer 
so much from feeling the want of something better, they have not the 
force to create it." 

" One thing more " — said after an interval my strange interlocutor. 
" Can you awake in man a laughter full of the joy of life and at the 
same time elevating to the soul ? Look, men have quite forgotten good 
wholesome laughter! " 

*' The sense of life is not in self-satisfaction ; after all, man is 
better than that. The sense of life is in the beauty and the force of 
striving towards some aim; every moment of being ought to have 
its higher aim." " Wrath, hatred, shame, loathing, and finally a grim 
despair — these are the levers by means of which you may destroy 
everything on earth." " What can you do to awake a thirst for life 
when you only whine, sigh, moan, or coolly point out to man that he 
is nothing but dust? " 

" Oh, for a man, firm and loving, with a burning heart and a 
powerful all-embracing mind. In the stuffy atmosphere of shameful 
silence, his prophetic words would resound like an alarm-bell, and 
perhaps the mean souls of the living dead would shiver! " (253.) 

These Ideas of Gorkiy about the necessity of something 
better than everyday life — something that shall elevate the 
soul, fully explain also his last drama, At the Bottom, which 
has had such a success at Moscow, but played by the very same 
artists at St. Petersburg met with but little enthusiasm. The 
idea Is the same as that of Ibsen's Wild Duck. The Inhabi- 
tants of a doss-house, all of them, maintain their life-power 
only as long as they cherish some Illusion: the drunkard 
actor dreams of recovery In some special retreat; a fallen 
girl takes refuge In her Illusion of real love, and so on. And 
the dramatic situation of these beings with already so little 
to retain them In life, Is only the more poignant when the 
illusions are destroyed. The drama is powerful. It must lose, 
though, on the stage on account of some technical mistakes 
(a useless fourth act, the unnecessary person of a woman 
introduced In the first scene and then disappearing) ; but apart 
from these mistakes It is eminently dramatic. The positions 
are really tragical, the action Is rapid, and as to the con- 
versations of the Inhabitants of the doss-house and their 
philosophy of life, both are above all praise. Altogether one 
feels that Gorkiy is very far yet from having said his last 



26o RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

word. The question Is only whether In the classes of society 
he now frequents he will be able to discover the further 
developments — undoubtedly existing — of the types which 
he understands best. Will he find among them further 
materials responding to the aesthetic canons whose following 
has hitherto been the source of his power? 



PART VIII 

Political Literature, Satire, 
Art Criticism, 
Contemporary Novelists, 
Bibliography 



CHAPTER VIII 

POLITICAL literature: SATIRE: ART CRITICISM: CONTEM- 
PORARY NOVELISTS 

POLITICAL LITERATURE— Difficulties of Censorship— The 
Circles — Westerners and Slavophiles — Political Literature 
abroad : Herzen — Ogaryoff — Bakunin — Lavroff — Stepniak — 
The Contemporary and Tchernyshevskiy — Satire: Schedrin 
(Saltykoff) — Art Criticism: Its Importance in Russia — Bye- 
linskiy — Dobroluboff — Pisareff — Mihailovskiy — Tolstoy's 
What is Art? — Contemporary Novelists — Otel — Koro- 
lenko — Present Drift of Literature — Merezherovskiy — Bobo- 
rykin — Potapenko — Tchehoff. 

POLITICAL LITERATURE ' 

TO speak of political literature In a country which 
has no political liberty, and v^here nothing can be 
printed without having been approved by a rigorous 
censorship, sounds almost like Irony. And yet, notwith- 
standing all the efforts of the Government to prevent the 
discussion of political matters in the Press, or even in private 
circles, that discussion goes on, under all possible aspects and 
under all imaginable pretexts. As a result it would be no 
exaggeration to say that in the necessarily narrow circle of 
educated Russian " intellectuals " there Is as much knowl- 
edge, all round, of matters political as there Is In the educated 
circles of any other European country, and that a certain 
knowledge of the political life of other nations is wide-spread 
among the reading portion of Russians. 

It is well known that everything that Is printed In Russia, 
even up to the present time, is submitted to censorship, either 
before it goes to print, or afterwards. To found a review 
or a paper the editor must offer satisfactory guarantees of 
not being " too advanced " in his political opinions, other- 

263 



264 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

wise he will not be authorised by the Ministry of the Interior 
to start the paper or the review and to act in the capacity of 
its editor. In certain cases a paper or a review, published in 
one of the two capitals but never in the provinces, may be 
allowed to appear without passing through the censor's hands 
before going to print; but a copy of it must be sent to the 
censor as soon as the printing begins, and every number may 
be stopped and prevented from being put into circulation 
before it has left the printing office, to say nothing of subse- 
quent prosecution. The same condition of things exists for 
books. Even after the paper or the book has been authorised 
by the censor It may be subject to a prosecution. The law of 
1864 was very definite In stating the conditions under which 
such prosecution could take place; namely, it had to be made 
before a regular court, within one month after publication; 
but this law was never respected by the Government. Books 
were seized and destroyed — reduced to pulp — without the 
affair ever being brought before a Court, and I know editors 
who have been plainly warned that if they insisted upon this 
being done, they would simply be exiled, by order of the 
administration, to some remote province. This is not all, 
moreover. A paper or a review may receive a first, a second, 
and a third warning, and after the third warning It Is sus- 
pended, by virtue of that warning. Besides, the Ministry of 
the Interior may at any time prohibit the sale of the paper 
In the streets and the shops, or deprive the paper of the right 
of inserting advertisements. 

The arsenal of punishments is thus pretty large ; but there 
is still something else. It is the system of ministerial circulars. 
Suppose a strike takes place, or some scandalous bribery 
has been discovered In some branch of the administration. 
Immediately all papers and reviews receive a circular from 
the Ministry of the Interior prohibiting them to speak of 
that strike, or that scandal. Even less important matters will 
be tabooed In this way. Thus a few years ago an anti-Semitic 
comedy was put on the stage at St. Petersburg. It was imbued 
with the worst spirit of national hatred towards the Jews, 
and the actress who was given the main part in It refused 
to play. She preferred to break her agreement with the man- 
ager rather than to play in that comedy. Another actress 



POLITICAL LITERATURE 265 

was engaged. This became known to the public, and at the 
first representation a formidable demonstration was made 
against the actors who had accepted parts in the play, and 
also against the author. Some eighty arrests — chiefly of stu- 
dents and other young people and of litterateurs — were made 
from among the audience, and for two days the St. Peters- 
burg papers were full of discussions of the incident; but then 
came the ministerial circular prohibiting any further refer- 
ence to the subject, and on the third day there was not a word 
said about the matter in all the Press of Russia. 

Socialism, the social question altogether, and the labour 
movement are continually tabooed by ministerial circulars — 
to say nothing of Society and Court scandals, or of the thefts 
which may be discovered from time to time in the higher 
administration. At the end of the reign of Alexander II. the 
theories of Darwin, Spencer, and Buckle were tabooed in the 
same way, and their works were prevented from being kept 
by the circulating libraries. 

This is what censorship means nowaday. As to what was 
formerly, a very amusing book could be made of the antics 
of the different censors, simply by utilising Skabitchevskiy's 
History of Censorship. Suffice it to say that when Pushkin, 
speaking of a lady, wrote: " Your divine features," or men- 
tioned " her celestial beauty," the censorship would cross out 
these verses and write, in red ink on the MS., that such 
expressions were offensive to divinity and could not be 
allowed. Verses were mutilated without any regard to the 
rules of versification; and very often the censor introduced, 
in a novel, scenes of his own. 

Under such conditions political thought had continually 
to find new channels for its expression. Quite a special 
language was developed therefore in the reviews and papers 
for the treatment of forbidden subjects and for expressing 
ideas which censorship would have found objectionable; and 
this way of writing was resorted to even in works of art. A 
few words dropped by a Rudin, or by a Bazaroff In a novel 
by Turgueneff, conveyed quite a world of ideas. However, 
other channels besides mere allusion were necessary, and 
therefore political thought found its expression in various 
other ways: first of all, in literary and philosophical circles 



266 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

which Impressed their stamp on the entire literature of a 
given epoch; then, in art-criticism, in satire, and In literature 
published abroad, either in Switzerland or in England. 

THE ''circles'' — WESTERNERS AND SLAVOPHILES 

It was especially In the forties and fifties of the nineteenth 
century that " the circles " played an Important part in the 
Intellectual development of Russia. No sort of expression of 
political thought In print was possible at that time. The two 
or three semi-official newspapers which were allowed to 
appear were absolutely worthless ; the novel, the drama, the 
poem, had to deal with the most superficial matters only, and 
the heaviest books of science and philosophy were as liable 
to be prohibited as the lighter sort of literature. Private Inter- 
course was the only possible means of exchanging ideas, and 
therefore all the best men of the time joined some " circle," 
In which more or less advanced Ideas were expressed in 
friendly conversation. There are even men like Stankevitch 
(i8 17-1840) who are mentioned In every course of Russian 
literature, although they have never written anything, simply 
for the moral influence they exercised within their circle. 
(Turgueneff's Ydkov Pdsynkof was inspired by such a 
personality.) 

It is quite evident that under such conditions there was no 
room for the development of political parties properly speak- 
ing. However, from the middle of the nineteenth century 
two main currents of philosophical and social thought, which 
took the name of *^ Western " and " Slavophile," were 
always apparent. The Westerners were, broadly speaking, for 
Western civilisation. Russia — they maintained — is no excep- 
tion in the great family of European nations. She will 
necessarily pass through the same phases of development that 
Western Europe has passed through, and consequently her 
next step will be the abolition of serfdom and, after that, the 
evolution of the same constitutional institutions as have been 
evolved In Western Europe. The Slavophiles, on the other 
side, maintained that Russia has a mission of her own. She 
has not known foreign conquest like that of the Normans; 
she has retained still the structure of the old clan period, and 



POLITICAL LITERATURE 267 

therefore she must follow her own quite original lines of 
development, in accordance with what the Slavophiles de- 
scribed as the three fundamental principles of Russian life: 
the Greek Orthodox Church, the absolute power of the Tsar, 
and the principles of the patriarchal family. 

These were, of course, very wide programmes, which 
admitted of many shades of opinion and gradations. Thus, 
for the great bulk of the Westerners, Western liberalism of 
the Whig or the Guizot type w^as the highest ideal that 
Russia had to strive for. They maintained moreover that 
everything which has happened in Western Europe in the 
course of her evolution — such as the depopulation of the 
villages, the horrors of freshly developing capitalism (re- 
vealed in England by the Parliamentary Commissions of the 
forties), the powers of bureaucracy which had developed in 
France, and so on, must necessarily be repeated In Russia as 
well : they were unavoidable laws of evolution. This was the 
opinion of the rank-and-file " Westerner." 

The more Intelligent and the better educated representa- 
tives of this same party — Byelinskly, Herzen, Turgueneff, 
Tchernyshevskly, who were all under the Influence of ad- 
vanced European thought, held quite different views. In 
their opinion the hardships suffered by worklngmen and 
agricultural labourers in Western Europe from the unbridled 
power won In the parliaments, by both the landlords and the 
middle classes, and the limitations of political liberties 
introduced In the continental States of Europe by their 
bureaucratic centralisation, were by no means " historical 
necessities." Russia — they maintained — need not necessarily 
repeat these mistakes ; she must on the contrary, profit by the 
experience of her elder sisters, and If Russia succeeds in at- 
taining the era of Industrialism without having lost her 
communal land-ownership, or the autonomy of certain parts 
of the Empire, or the self-government of the mir In her 
villages, this will be an Immense advantage. It would be 
therefore the greatest political mistake to go on destroying 
her village community, to let the land concentrate In the 
hands of a landed aristocracy, and to let the political life of 
so Immense and varied a territory be concentrated In the 
hands of a central governing body, In accordance with the 



268 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Prussian, or the Napoleonic ideals of political centralisation 
— especially now that the powers of Capitalism are so great. 

Similar gradations of opinion prevailed among the Slavo- 
philes. Their best representatives — the two brothers AksA- 
KOFF, the two brothers Kireevskiy, Homyakoff, etc., 
were much in advance of the great bulk of the party. The 
average Slavophile was simply a fanatic of absolute rule 
and the Orthodox Church, to which feelings he usually added 
a sort of sentimental attachment to the *' old good times," 
by which he understood all sorts of things : patriarchal habits 
of the times of serfdom, manners of country life, folk songs, 
traditions, and folk-dress. At a time when the real history of 
Russia had hardly begun to be deciphered they did not even 
suspect that the federalist principle had prevailed in Russia 
down to the Mongol invasion; that the authority of the 
Moscow Tsars was of a relatively late creation (15th, i6th 
and 17th centuries) ; and that autocracy was not at all an 
Inheritance of old Russia, but was chiefly the work of that 
same Peter I. whom they execrated for having violently Intro- 
duced Western habits of life. Few of them realised also that 
the religion of the great mass of the Russian people was not 
the religion which Is professed by the official " Orthodox " 
Church, but a thousand varieties of " Dissent." They thus 
imagined that they represented the ideals of the Russian 
-people, while In reality they represented the Ideals of the 
Russian State, and the Moscow Church, which are of a 
mixed Byzantine, Latin, and Mongolian origin. With the 
aid of the fogs of German metaphysics — especially of Hegel 
— which were In great vogue at that time, and with that love 
of abstract terminology which prevailed In the first half of 
the nineteenth century, discussion upon such themes could 
evidently last for years without coming to a definite 
conclusion. 

However, with all that. It must be owned that, through 
their best representatives, the Slavophiles powerfully con- 
tributed towards the creation of a school of history and law 
which put historical studies In Russia on a true foundation, 
by making a sharp distinction between the history and the law 
of the Russian State and the history and the law of the 
Russian people, KostomAroff (18 18-1885), Zabyelin 



POLITICAL LITERATURE 269 

(born 1820) and ByelAeff (18 10-1873), were the 
first to write the real history of the Russian people, and of 
these three, the two last were Slavophiles; while the former 
— an Ukrainian nationalist — had also borrowed from the 
Slavophiles their scientific ideas. They brought into evidence 
the federalistic character of early Russian history. They de- 
stroyed the legend, propagated by Karamzin, of an unin- 
terrupted transmission of royal power, that was supposed to 
have taken place for a thousand years, from the times of 
the Norman Rurik till to-day. They brought into evidence the 
violent means by which the princes of Moscow crushed the 
independent city-republics of the pre-Mongolian period, and 
gradually, with the aid of the Mongol Khans, becanie the 
Tsars of Russia; and they told (especially Byelaeff, in his 
History of the Peasants in Russia) the gruesome tale of 
the growth of serfdom from the seventeenth century, under 
the Moscow Tsars. Besides, it is mainly to the Slavophiles 
that we owe the recognition of the fact that two different 
codes exist in Russia — the Code of the Empire, which is the 
code of the educated classes, and the Common Law, which is 
(like the Norman law in Jersey) widely different from the 
former, and very often preferable, in its conceptions of land- 
ownership, inheritance, etc., and is the law which prevails 
among the peasants, its details varying in different provinces. 
The recognition of this fact has already had far-reaching 
consequences in the whole life of Russia and her colonies. 

In the absence of political life the philosophical and 
literary struggles between the Slavophiles and the Westerners 
absorbed the minds of the best men of the literary circles of 
St. Petersburg and Moscow in the years 1 840-1 860. The 
question whether or not each nationality is the bearer of some 
pre-determined mission in history, and whether Russia has 
some such special mission, was eagerly discussed in the circles 
to which, in the forties, belonged Bakunin, the critic Byelin- 
skiy, Herzen, Turgueneff, the Aksakoffs and the Kireevskiys, 
Kavelin, Botkin, and, in fact, all the best men of the time. 
But when later on serfdom was being abolished (in 1857- 
63) the very realities of the moment established upon certain 
important questions the most remarkable agreement between 
Slavophiles and Westerners, the most advanced socialistic 



270 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Westerners, like Tchernyshevskiy, joining hands with the 
advanced Slavophiles in their desire to maintain the really 
fundamental Institutions of the Russian peasants: the village 
community, the common law, and the federalistic principles; 
while the more advanced Slavophiles made substantial con- 
cessions as regards the '* Western " ideals embodied In the 
Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration of the 
Rights of Man. It was to these years (1861) that Turgue- 
neff alluded when he said that In A Nohleman^s Retreat, in 
the discussion between Lavretskly and Panshin, he — ** an 
inveterate Westerner '' — had given the superiority In argu- 
ment to the defender of Slavophile Ideas because of the 
deference to them then In real life. 

At present the struggle between the Westerners and the 
Slavophiles has come to an end. The last representative of 
the Slavophile school, the much-regretted philosopher, V. 
SoLOViOFF ( 1 853-1900), was too well versed In history and 
philosophy, and had too broad a mind to go to the extremes 
of the old Slavophiles. As to the present representatives of 
this school, having none of the inspiration which charac- 
terised its founders, they have sunk to the level of mere 
Imperialistic dreamers and warlike Nationalists, or of Ortho- 
dox Ultramontanes, whose Intellectual Influence Is nil. At 
the present moment the main struggle goes on between the 
defenders of autocracy and those of freedom ; the defenders 
of capital and those of labour; the defenders of centralisation 
and bureaucracy, and those of the republican federalistic 
principle, municipal Independence, and the independence of 
the village community. 

POLITICAL LITERATURE ABROAD 

One great drawback in Russia has been that no portion of 
the Slavonian countries has ever obtained political freedom, 
as did Switzerland or Belgium, so as to offer to Russian polit- 
ical refugees an asylum where they would not feel quite 
separated from their mother country. Russians, when they 
have fled from Russia, have had therefore to go to Switzer- 
land or to England, where they have remained, until quite 
lately, absolute strangers. Even France, with which they had 



POLITICAL LITERATURE 271 

more points of contact, was only occasionally open to them ; 
while the two countries nearest to Russia — Germany and 
Austria — not being themselves free, remained closed to all 
political refugees. In consequence, till quite lately political 
and religious emigration from Russia has been Insignificant, 
and only for a few years In the nineteenth century has politi- 
cal literature published abroad ever exercised a real Influence 
in Russia. This was during the times of Herzen and his paper 
The Bell. 

Herzen (1812-1870) was born in a rich family at Mos- 
cow — his mother, however, being a German — and he was 
educated In the old-nobility quarter of the " Old Equerries." 
A French emigrant, a German tutor, a Russian teacher who 
was a great lover of freedom, and the rich library of his 
father, composed of French and German eighteenth century 
philosophers — these were his education. The reading of the 
French encyclopaedists left a deep trace In his mind, so that 
even later on, when he paid, like all his young friends, a 
tribute to the study of German metaphysics, he never 
abandoned the concrete ways of thought and the natural- 
istic turn of mind which he had borrowed from the French 
eighteenth century philosophers. 

He entered the Moscow university In Its physical and 
mathematical department. The French Revolution of 1830 
had just produced a deep Impression on thinking minds all 
over Europe; and a circle of young men, which Included 
Herzen, his Intimate friend, the poet Ogaryoff, Passek, 
the future explorer of folklore, and several others, came to 
spend whole nights in reading and discussing political and 
social matters, especially Salnt-Simonlsm. Under the impres- 
sion of what they knew about the Decembrists, Herzen and 
Ogaryoff, when they were mere boys, had already taken " the 
Hannibal oath " of avenging the memory of these fore- 
runners of liberty. The result of these youthful gatherings 
was that at one of them some song was sung in which there 
was disrespectful allusion to Nicholas I. This reached the 
ears of the State police. Night searchings were made at the 
lodgings of the young men, and all were arrested. Some were 
sent to Siberia, and the others would have been marched as 
soldiers to a battalion, like Polezhaeff and Shevtchenko, had 



272 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

it not been for the Interference of certain persons In high 
places. Herzen was sent to a small town in the Urals, 
Vyatka, and remained full six years In exile. 

When he was allowed to return to Moscow, In 1840, he 
found the literary circles entirely under the Influence of Ger- 
man philosophy, losing themselves In metaphysical abstrac- 
tions. " The absolute " of Hegel, his triad-scheme of human 
progress, and his assertion to the effect that " all that exists Is 
reasonable " were eagerly discussed. This last had brought 
the Hegelians to maintain that even the despotism of 
Nicholas I. was " reasonable," and even the great critic Bye- 
linskiy had been smitten with that recognition of the " his- 
torical necessity " of absolutism. Herzen too had, of course, 
to study Hegel; but this study brought him, as well as his 
friend Mikhail Bakunin (1824-1876), to quite different 
conclusions. They both acquired a great influence in the 
circles, and directed their studies toward the history of the 
struggles for liberty in Western Europe, and to a careful 
knowledge of the French Socialists, especially Fourier and 
Pierre Leroux. They then constituted the left wing of " the 
Westerners," to which Turgueneff, Kavelln and so many of 
our writers belonged; while the Slavophiles constituted the 
right wing which has already been mentioned on a preceding 
page. 

In 1842 Herzen was exiled once more — this time to Nov- 
gorod, and only with great difficulties could he obtain 
permission to go abroad. He left Russia in 1847, never more 
to return. Bakunin and Ogaryoff were already abroad, and 
after a journey to Italy, which was then making heroic efforts 
to free itself from the Austrian yoke, he soon joined his 
friends in Paris, which was then on the eve of the Revolution 
of 1848. 

He lived through the youthful enthusiasm of the move- 
ment which embraced all Europe in the spring of 1848, and 
he also lived through all the subsequent disappointments and 
the massacre of the Paris proletarians during the terrible 
days of June. The quarter where he and Turgueneff stayed 
at that time was surrounded by a chain of police-agents who 
knew them both personally, and they could only rage In their 
rooms as they heard the volleys of rifle-shots, announcing 



POLITICAL LITERATURE 273 

that the vanquished workingmen who had been taken 
prisoners were being shot in batches by the triumphing 
bourgeoisie. Both have left most striking descriptions of 
those days — Herzen's June Days being one of the best pieces 
of Russian literature. 

Deep despair took hold of Herzen when all the hopes 
raised by the revolution had so rapidly come to nought and 
a fearful reaction had spread all over Europe, re-establishing 
Austrian rule over Italy and Hungary, paving the way for 
Napoleon III. at Paris, and sweeping away everywhere the 
very traces of a wide-spread Socialistic movement. Herzen 
then felt a deep despair as regards Western civilisation alto- 
gether, and expressed it In most moving pages, in his book 
From the other Shore. It Is a cry of despair — the cry of a 
prophetic politician In the voice of a great poet. 

Later on Herzen founded, at Paris, with Proudhon, a 
paper, UAmi du Peuple, of which almost every number w^as 
confiscated by the police of Napoleon the Third. The paper 
could not live, and Herzen himself was soon expelled from 
France. He was naturalised In Switzerland, and finally, after 
the tragic loss of his mother and his son In a shipwreck, he 
definitely settled at London In 1857. Here the first leaf of a 
free Russian Press was printed that same year, and very soon 
Herzen became one of the strongest Influences In Russia. He 
started first a review, the name of which. The Polar Star, was 
a remembrance of the almanack published under this name 
by Ryleeft (see Ch. I.) ; and In this review he published, 
besides political articles and most valuable material concern- 
ing the recent history of Russia, his admirable memoirs — 
Past Facts and Thoughts. 

Apart from the historical value of these memoirs — Herzen 
knew all the historical personages of his time — they certainly 
are one of the best pieces of poetical literature In any 
language. The descriptions of men and events which they con- 
tain, beginning with Russia in the forties and ending with the 
years of exile, reveal at every step an extraordinary, philo- 
sophical Intelligence; a profoundly sarcastic mind, combined 
with a great deal of good-natured humour; a deep hatred of 
oppressors and a deep personal love for the simple-hearted 
heroes of human emancipation. At the same time these 



274 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

memoirs contain such fine, poetical scenes from the author's 
personal life, as his love of Nathalie — later his wife — or 
such deeply Impressive chapters as Oceano Nox, where he 
tells about the loss of his son and mother. One chapter of 
these memoirs remains still unpublished, and from what Tur- 
gueneff told me about It, It must be of the highest beauty. 
" No one has ever written like him," Turgueneff said: " it 
is all written In tears and blood." 

A paper. The Bell, soon followed the Polar Star, and it 
was through this paper that the Influence of Herzen became a 
real power In Russia. It appears now, from the lately pub- 
lished correspondence between Turgueneff and Herzen, that 
the great novelist took a very lively part In The Bell. It was 
he who supplied his friend Herzen with the most interesting 
material and gave him hints as to what attitude he should 
take upon this or that subject. 

These were, of course, the years when Russia was on the 
eve of the abolition of serfdom and of a thorough reform of 
most of the antiquated institutions of Nicholas L, and when 
everyone took Interest in public affairs. Numbers of memoirs 
upon the questions of the day were addressed to the Tsar 
by private persons, or simply circulated in private, in MS. ; 
and Turgueneff would get hold of them, and they would be 
discussed In The Bell. At the same time The Bell was reveal- 
ing such facts of mal-adminlstration as It was Impossible to 
bring to public knowledge in Russia itself, while the leading 
articles were written by Herzen with a force, an Inner 
warmth, and a beauty of form which are seldom found in 
political literature. I know of no West European writer with 
whom I should be able to compare Herzen. The Bell was 
smuggled into Russia in large quantities and could be found 
everywhere. Even Alexander II. and the Empress Marie were 
among its regular readers. 

Two years after serfdom had been abolished, and while 
all sorts of urgently needed reforms were still under dis- 
cussion — that is, in 1863 — ^began, as is known, the uprising 
of Poland; and this uprising, crushed in blood and on the 
gallows, brought the liberation movement In Russia to a com- 
plete end. Reaction got the upper hand; and the popularity 
of Herzen, who had supported the Poles, was necessarily 



POLITICAL LITERATURE 275 

gone. The Bell was read no more in Russia, and the efforts 
of Herzen to continue it in French brought no results. A new 
generation came then to the front — the generation of Baza- 
roff and of " the populists," whom Herzen did not under- 
stand from the outset, although they were his own intellectual 
sons and daughters, dressed now in a new, more democratic 
and realistic garb. He died in isolation in Switzerland, in 
1870. 

The works of Herzen, even now, are not allowed to be 
circulated in Russia, and they are not sufficiently known to 
the younger generation. It is certain, however, that when 
the time comes for them to be read again Russians will 
discover in Herzen a very profound thinker, whose 
sympathies were entirely with the working classes, who 
understood the forms of human development in all their com- 
plexity, and who wrote in a style of unequalled beauty — the 
best proof that his ideas had been thought out in detail and 
under a variety of aspects. 

Before he had emigrated and founded a free press at 
London, Herzen had written in Russian reviews under the 
name of Iskander, treating various subjects, such as West- 
ern politics, socialism, the philosophy of natural sciences, art, 
and so on. He also wrote a novel. Whose Fault is it ? which 
is often spoken of in the history of the development of intel- 
lectual types in Russia. The hero of this novel, Beltoff, is a 
direct descendant from Lermontoff's Petchorin, and occupies 
an intermediate position between him and the heroes of 
Turgueneff. 

The work of the poet Ogaryoff (1813-1877) was not 
very large, and his intimate friend, Herzen, who was a great 
master in personal characteristics, could say of him that his 
chief life-work was the working out of such an ideal person- 
ality as he was himself. His private life was most unhappy, 
but his influence upon his friends was very great. He was a 
thorough lover of freedom, who, before he left Russia, set 
free his ten thousand serfs, surrendering all the land to 
them, and who, throughout all his life abroad remained 
true to the ideals of equality and freedom which he had 
cherished in his youth. Personally, he was the gentlest imag- 
inable of men, and a note of resignation, in the sense of 



276 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

Schiller's, sounds throughout his poetry, amongst which 
fierce poems of revolt and of masculine energy are few. 

As to Mikhail Bakunin (1824-1876), the other great 
friend of Herzen, his work belongs chiefly to the Interna- 
tional Working Men's Association, and hardly can find a 
place In a sketch of Russian literature ; but his personal Influ- 
ence on some of the prominent writers of Russia was very 
great. Suflice It to say that Byelinskly distinctly acknowledged 
In his letters that Bakunin was his *' Intellectual father," and 
that It was In fact he who Infused the Moscow circle, of which 
I have just spoken, and the St. Petersburg literary circles 
with socialistic Ideas. He was the typical revolutionist, whom 
nobody could approach without being Inspired by a revolu- 
tionary fire. Besides, If advanced thought In Russia has 
always remained true to the cause of the different nationali- 
ties — Polish, Finnish, Little Russian, Caucasian — oppressed 
by Russian tsardom, or by Austria, It owes this to a very great 
extent to Ogaryoff and Bakunin. In the International labour 
movement Bakunin became the soul of the left wing of the 
great Working Men's Association, and he was the founder 
of modern Anarchism, or anti-State Socialism, of which he 
laid down the foundations upon his wide historical and 
philosophical knowledge. 

Finally I must mention among the Russian political 
writers abroad, Peter Lavroff (i 823-1901). He was a 
mathematician and a philosopher who represented, under the 
name of " anthropologism," a reconciliation of modern 
natural science materialism with Kantianism. He was a 
colonel of artillery, a professor of mathematics, and a mem- 
ber of the St. Petersburg newly-formed municipal govern- 
ment, when he was arrested and exiled to a small town in the 
Urals. One of the young Socialist circles kidnapped him from 
there and shipped him off to London, where he began to 
publish in the year 1874 the Socialist review Forzvard, Lav- 
roff was an extremely learned encyclopaedist who made his 
reputation by his Mechanical Theory of the Universe and by 
the first chapters of a very exhaustive history of mathematical 
sciences. His later work. History of Modern Thought, of 
which unfortunately only the four or five introductory 
volumes have been published, would certainly have been an 



POLITICAL LITERATURE 277 

important contribution to evolutionist philosophy, If It had 
been completed. In the socialist movement he belonged to the 
social-democratic wing, but was too widely learned and too 
much of a philosopher to join the German social-democrats 
In their ideals of a centralised communistic State, or In their 
narrow interpretation of history. However, the work of 
Lavroff which gave him the greatest notoriety and best 
expressed his own personality was a small work, Historical 
Letters, which he published In Russia under the pseudo- 
nym of MiRTOFF and which can now be read In a French 
translation. This little work appeared at the right moment — 
just when our youth, in the years 1870-73, were endeavour- 
ing to find a new programme of action amongst the people. 
Lavroff stands out In It as a preacher of activity amongst the 
people, speaking to the educated youth of their Indebtedness 
to the people, and of their duty to repay the debt which they 
had contracted towards the poorer classes during the years 
they had passed In the universities — all this, developed with 
a profusion of historical hints, of philosophical deductions, 
and of practical advice. These letters had a deep influence 
upon our youth. The Ideas which Lavroff preached in 1870 
he confirmed by all his subsequent life. He lived to the age 
of 82, and passed all his life in strict conformity with his 
ideal, occupying at Paris two small rooms, limiting his daily 
expenses for food to a ridiculously small amount, earning his 
living by his pen, and giving all his time to the spreading of 
the Ideas which were so dear to him. 

Nicholas Turgueneff (1789-1871) was a remarkable 
political writer, who belonged to two different epochs. In 
1 8 1 8 he published in Russia a Theory of Taxation — a book, 
quite striking for Its time and country, as It contained the 
development of the liberal economical ideas of Adam Smith; 
and he was already beginning to work for the abolition of 
serfdom. He made a practical attempt by partly freeing his 
own serfs, and wrote on this subject several memoirs for the 
use of Emperor Alexander I. He also worked for constitu- 
tional rule, and soon became one of the most Influential mem- 
bers of the secret society of the Decembrists; but he was 
abroad in December, 1825, and therefore escaped being 
executed with his friends. After that time N. Turgueneff 



278 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

remained In exile, chiefly at Paris, and In 1857, when an 
amnesty was granted to the Decembrists, and he was allowed 
to return to Russia, he did so for a few weeks only. 

He took, however, a lively part In the emancipation of 
the serfs, which he had preached since 18 18 and which he 
had discussed also In his large work. La Russie et les Riisses, 
published In Paris In 1847. Now he devoted to this subject 
several papers in The Bell and several pamphlets. He con- 
tinued at the same time to advocate the convocation of a 
General Representative Assembly, the development of pro- 
vincial self-government, and other urgent reforms. He died 
at Paris In 1871, after having had the happiness which had 
come to few Decembrists — that of taking, towards the end 
of his days, a practical part In the realisation of one of the 
dreams of his youth, for which so many of our noblest men 
had given their lives. 

I pass over in silence several other writers, like Prince 
DoLGORUKiY, and especially a number of Polish writers, 
who emigrated from Russia for the sake of free speech. 

I omit also quite a number of socialistic and constitutional 
papers and reviews which have been published In Switzerland 
or In England during the last twenty years, and will only 
mention, and that only in a few words, my friend Stepniak 
(185 2-1 897). His writings were chiefly in English, but now 
that they are translated into Russian they will certainly win 
for him an honourable place in the history of Russian litera- 
ture. His two novels, The Career of a Nihilist {Andrei 
Kozhuhoff in Russian) and The Stundist Pavel Rudenko, as 
also his earlier sketches. Underground Russia, revealed his 
remarkable literary talent, but a stupid railway accident put 
an end to his young life, so rich In vigour and thought and 
so full of promises. It must also be mentioned that the great- 
est Russian writer of our own time, Leo Tolstoy, cannot 
have many of his works printed in Russia, and that there- 
fore his friend, V. Tchertkoff, has started in England a 
regular publishing office, both for editing Tolstoy's works 
and for bringing to light the religious movements which are 
going on now in Russia, and the prosecutions directed against 
them by the Government. 



POLITICAL LITERATURE 279 

TCHERNYSHEVSKIY AND '' THE CONTEMPORARY *' 

The most prominent among political writers in Russia 
itself has undoubtedly been Tchernyshevskiy (1828- 
1889), whose name is indissolubly connected with that of the 
review, Sovremennik {The Contemporary), The influence 
which this review exercised on public opinion in the years of 
the abolition of serfdom (1857-62) was equal to that of 
Herzen's Bell, and this influence was mainly due to Tcherny- 
shevskiy, and partly to the critic Dobroluboff. 

Tchernyshevskiy was born in Southeastern Russia, at 
Saratoff — his father being a well educated and respected 
priest of the cathedral — and his early education he received, 
first at home, and next in the Saratoff seminary. He left the 
seminary, however, in 1844, and two years later entered the 
philological department of the St. Petersburg University. 

The quantity of work which Tchernyshevskiy performed 
during his life, and the Immensity of knowledge which he 
acquired in various branches, was simply stupendous. He 
began his literary career by works on philology and literary 
criticism; and he wrote In this last branch three remarkable 
works. The ^sthetical Relations between Art and Reality , 
Sketches of the Gogol period, and Lessing and his Time, in 
which he developed a whole theory of aesthetics and literary 
criticism. His main work, however, was accomplished during 
the four years, 1858-62, when he wrote in The Contempo- 
rary, exclusively on political and economical matters. These 
were the years of the abolition of serfdom, and opinion, both 
in the public at large and In the Government spheres, was 
quite unsettled even as to the leading principles which should 
be followed In accomplishing it. The two main questions 
were : should the liberated serfs receive the land which they 
were cultivating for themselves while they were serfs, and if 
so — on what conditions ? And next — should the village com- 
munity Institutions be maintained and the land held, as of old, 
in common — the village community becoming in this case the 
basis for the future self-government institutions ? All the best 
men of Russia were In favour of an answer In the affirmative 
to both these questions, and even in the higher spheres 
opinion went the same way; but all the reactionists and 



2 8o RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

" esclavaglst '' serf-owners of the old school bitterly opposed 
this view. They wrote memoirs upon memoirs and addressed 
them to the Emperor and the Emancipation Committees, and 
it was necessary, of course, to analyse their arguments and to 
produce weighty historical and economical proofs against 
them. In this struggle Tchernyshevskly, who was, of course, 
as was Herzen's Bell, with the advanced party, supported It 
with all the powers of his great Intelligence, his wide erudi- 
tion, and his formidable capacity for work; and if this party 
carried the day and finally converted Alexander II. and the 
official leaders of the Emancipation Committees to its views, 
it was certainly to a great extent owing to the energy of 
Tchernyshevskly and his friends. 

It must also be said that In this struggle The Contemporary 
and The Bell found a strong support in two advanced politi- 
cal writers from the Slavophile camp: Kosheleff (1806- 
1883) and YuRiY Samarin (18 19-1876). The former had 
advocated, since 1847 — both in writing and in practise — the 
liberation of the serfs " with the land," the maintenance of 
the village community, and peasant self-government, and 
now Kosheleff and Samarin, both influential landlords, ener- 
getically supported these Ideas In the Emancipation Commit- 
tees, while Tchernyshevskly fought for them In The Contem- 
porary and in his Letters without an Address (written 
apparently to Alexander II. and published only later on In 
Switzerland) . 

No less a service did Tchernyshevskly render to Russian 
Society by educating It in economical matters and In the 
history of modern times. In this respect he acted with a won- 
derful pedagogical talent. He translated Mill's Political 
Economy, and wrote Notes to it, in a socialistic sense; more- 
over. In a series of articles, like Capital and Labour, Econom- 
ical Activity and the State, he did his best to spread sound 
economic ideas. In the domain of history he did the same, 
both in a series of translations and in a number of original 
articles upon the struggle of parties in modern France. 

In 1863 Tchernyshevskly was arrested, and while he was 
kept in the fortress he wrote a remarkable novel. What is to 
he Done ? From the artistic point of view this novel leaves 
much to be desired; but for the Russian youth of the times it 



POLITICAL LITERATURE 281 

was a revelation, and it became a programme. Questions of 
marriage, and separation after marriage in case such a separ- 
ation becomes necessary, agitated Russian society in those 
years. To ignore such questions was absolutely impossible. 
And Tchernyshevskiy discussed them in his novel, in describ- 
ing the relations between his heroine, Vyera Pavlovna, her 
husband Lopukhoff and the young doctor with whom she fell 
in love after her marriage — indicating the only solutions 
which perfect honesty and straightforward common sense 
could approve in such a case. At the same time he preached 
— in veiled words, which w^ere, however, perfectly well 
understood — Fourierism, and depicted in a most attractive 
form the communistic associations of producers. He also 
showed in his novel what true " Nihilists " were, and in what 
they differed from Turgueneff's Bazaroff. No novel of Tur- 
gueneff and no writings of Tolstoy or any other writer have 
ever had such a wide and deep influence upon Russian Society 
as this novel had. It became the watchword of Young Rus- 
sia, and the influence of the Ideas it propagated has never 
ceased to be apparent since. 

In 1864 Tchernyshevskiy was exiled to hard labour In 
Siberia, for the political and socialist propaganda which he 
had been making; and for fear that he might escape from 
Transbaikalia he was soon transported to a very secluded 
spot In the far North of Eastern Siberia — Vlluisk — where 
he was kept till 1883. Then only was he allowed to return 
to Russia and to settle at Astrakhan. His health, however, 
was already quite broken. Nevertheless, he undertook the 
translation of the Universal History of Weber, to which he 
wTote long addenda, and he had translated twelve volumes 
of it when death overtook him In 1889. Storms of polemics 
have raged over his grave, although his name, even yet, 
cannot be pronounced, nor his Ideas discussed, in the Russian 
Press. No other man has been so much hated by his political 
adversaries as Tchernyshevskiy. But even these are bound 
to recognise now the great services he rendered to Russia 
during the emancipation of the serfs, and his immense 
educational influence. 



282 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

THE SATIRE: SALTYKOFF 

With all the restrictions Imposed upon political literature 
in Russia, the satire necessarily became one of the favourite 
means of expressing political thought. It would take too 
much time to give even a short sketch of the earlier Russian 
satirists, as In order to do that one would have to go back 
as far as the eighteenth century. Of Gogol's satire I have 
already spoken ; consequently I shall limit my remarks under 
this head to only one representative of modern satire, 
Saltykoff, who Is better known under his nom-de-plume 
of ScHEDRiN (1826-1889). 

The influence of Saltykoff in Russia was very great, not 
only with the advanced section of Russian thought, but 
among the general readers as well. He was perhaps one of 
Russia's most popular writers. Here I must make, however, 
a personal remark. One may try as much as possible to keep 
to an objective standpoint in the appreciation of different 
writers, but a subjective element will necessarily interfere, 
and I personally must say that although I admire the great 
talent of Salt>^k6ff, I never could become as enthusiastic over 
his writings as the very great majority of my friends did. 
Not that I dislike satire : on the contrary ; but I like it much 
more definite than it is in Saltykoff. I fully recognise that his 
remarks were sometimes extremely deep, and always correct, 
and that in many cases he foresaw coming events long before 
the common reader could guess their approach; I fully 
admit that the satirical characterisations he gave of different 
classes of Russian society belong to the domain of good art, 
and that his types are really typical- — and yet, with all this, 
I find that these excellent characterisations and these acute 
remarks are too much lost amidst a deluge of insignificant 
talk, which was certainly meant to conceal their point from 
the censorship, but which mitigates the sharpness of the 
satire and tends chiefly to deaden Its effect. Consequently, 
I prefer, In my appreciation of Saltykoff to follow our best 
critics, and especially K. K. Arsenieff, to whom we owe 
two volumes of excellent Critical Studies. 

Saltykoff began his literary career very early and, like 
most of our best writers, he knew something of exile. In 



SATIRE 283 

1848 he wrote a novel, A Complicated Affair, in which some 
socialistic tendencies were expressed in the shape of a dream 
of a certain poor functionary. It so happened that the novel 
appeared In print just a few weeks after the February revo- 
lution of 1848 had broken out, and when the Russian 
Government was especially on the alert. Saltykoff was there- 
upon exiled to Vyatka, a miserable provincial town In East 
Russia, and was ordered to enter the civil service. The exile 
lasted seven years, during which he became thoroughly 
acquainted with the world of functionaries grouped around 
the Governor of the Province. Then In 1857 better times 
came for Russian literature, and Saltykoff, who was allowed 
to return to the capitals, utilised his knowledge of provincial 
life In writing a series of Provincial Sketches, 

The Impression produced by these Sketches was simply 
tremendous. All Russia talked of them. Saltykoff's talent 
appeared In them In Its full force, and with them was opened 
quite a new era In Russian literature. A great number of 
imitators began In their turn to dissect the Russian admin- 
istration and the failure of Its functionaries. Of course, 
something of the sort had already been done by Gogol, but 
Gogol, who wrote twenty years before, was compelled to 
confine himself to generalities, while Saltykoff was enabled 
to name things by their names and to describe provincial 
society as It was — denouncing the venal nature of the func- 
tionaries, the rottenness of the whole administration, the 
absence of comprehension of what was vital in the life of 
the country, and so on. 

When Saltykoff was permitted to return to St. Petersburg, 
after his exile, he did not abandon the service of the State, 
which he had been compelled to enter at Vyatka. With but 
a short interruption he remained a functionary till the year 
1868, and twice during that time he was VIce-Governor, 
and even Governor of a province. It was only then that he 
definitely left the service, to act, with Nekrasoff, as co-editor 
of a monthly review, Otechestvennyia Zapiski, which became 
after The Contemporary had been suppressed, the repre- 
sentative of advanced democratic thought in Russia, and 
retained this position till 1884, when it was suppressed In 
its turn. By that time the health of Saltykoff was broken 



284 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

down, and after a very painful illness, during which he 
nevertheles continued to write, he died In 1889. 

The Provincial Sketches determined once for all the char- 
acter of Saltykoff's work. His talent only deepened as he 
advanced in life, and his satires went more and more pro- 
foundly into the analysis of modern civilised life, of the 
many causes which stand in the way of progress, and of 
the infinity of forms which the struggle of reaction against 
progress is taking nowadays. In his Innocent Tales he 
touched upon some of the most tragic aspects of serfdom. 
Then, in his representation of the modern knights of indus- 
trialism and plutocracy, with their appetites for money- 
making and enjoyments of the lower sort, their heartless- 
ness, and their hopeless meanness, Saltykoff attained the 
heights of descriptive art; but he excelled perhaps even 
more in the representation of that " average man " who 
has no great passions, but for the mere sake of not being 
disturbed In the process of enjoyment of his phlllstlne well- 
being will not recoil before any crime against the best men 
of his time, and, If need be, will lend a ready hand to the 
worst enemies of progress. In flagellating that ** average 
man," who, owing to his unmitigated cowardice, has attained 
such a luxurious development In Russia, Saltykoff produced 
his greatest creations. But when he came to touch those who 
are the real geniuses of reaction — those who keep " the 
average man " in fear, and Inspire reaction, if need be, 
with audacity and ferocity — then Saltykoff's satire either 
recoiled before Its task, or the attack was veiled in so many 
funny and petty expressions and words that all Its venom 
was gone. 

When reaction had obtained the upper hand, In 1863, 
and the carrying out of the reforms of 1861 and of those 
still to be undertaken fell Into the hands of the very oppo- 
nents of these reforms, and the former serf-owners were 
doing all they could In order to recall serfdom once again 
to life, or, at least, so to bind the peasant by over-taxation 
and high rents as to practically enslave him once more, 
Saltykoff brought out a striking series of satires which admir- 
ably represented this new class of men. The History of a 
City, which is a comic history of Russia, full of allusions to 



SATIRE 285 

contemporary currents of thought. The Diary of a Provincial 
in St. Petersburg, Letters from the Provinces, and The Pom- 
padours belong to this series; while In Those Gentlemen of 
Tashkent he represented all that crowd which hastened 
now to make fortunes by railway building, advocacy In 
reformed tribunals, and annexation of new territories. In 
these sketches, as well as In those which he devoted to 
the description of the sad and sometimes psychologically 
unsound products of the times of serfdom ( The Gentlemen 
Golovlojfs, Poshekhonsk Antiquity), he created types, some 
of which, like Judushka have been described as almost 
Shakespearian. 

Finally, in the early eighties, when the terrible struggle 
of the terrorists against autocracy was over, and with the 
advent of Alexander III. reaction was triumphant, the 
satires of Schedrin became a cry of despair. At times the 
satirist becomes great In his sad Irony, and his Letters to 
my Aunt will live, not only as an historical but also as a 
deeply human document. 

It is also w^orthy of note that Saltykoiff had a real talent 
for writing tales. Some of them, especially those which dealt 
with children under serfdom, were of great beauty. 

LITERARY CRITICISM 

The main channel through which political thought found 
Its expression in Russia during the last fifty years was liter- 
ary criticism, which consequently has reached with us a 
development and an Importance that It has in no other 
country. The real soul of a Russian monthly review Is its art- 
critic. His article Is a much greater event than the novel of a 
favourite writer which may appear in the same number. The 
critic of a leading review is the Intellectual leader of the 
younger generation; and it so happened that throughout 
the last half-century we have had in Russia a succession of 
art-critics who have exercised upon the Intellectual aspects of 
their own times a far greater, and especially a far more wide- 
spread Influence than any novelist or any writer In any other 
domain. It is so generally true that the Intellectual aspect of a 
given epoch can be best characterised by naming the art-critic 



286 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

of the time who exercised the main influence. It was Byeh'n- 
skiy in the thirties or forties, Tchernyshevskiy and Dobro- 
luboff in the fifties and the early sixties, and Pisareff in the 
later sixties and seventies, who were respectively the rulers 
of thoughts in their generation of educated youth. It was 
only later on, when real political agitation began — taking at 
once two or three different directions, even In the advanced 
camp — that Mihailovskiy, the leading critic from the eighties 
until the present time, stood not for the whole movement 
but more or less for one of its directions. 

This means, of course, that literary criticism has in Russia 
certain special aspects. It is not limited to a criticism of works 
of art from the purely literary or aesthetic point of view. 
Whether a Rudin, or a Katerina are types of real, living 
beings, and whether the novel or the drama Is well built, 
well developed, and well written — these are, of course, the 
first questions considered. But they are soon answered; and 
there are Infinitely more important questions, which are 
raised in the thoughtful mind by every work of really good 
art: the questions concerning the position of a Rudin or a 
Katerina In society; the part, bad or good, which they play 
in it; the Ideas which Inspire them, and the value of these 
ideas; and then — the actions of the heroes, and the causes 
of these actions, both individual and social. In a good work 
of art the actions of the heroes are evidently what they would 
have been under similar conditions In reality; otherwise it 
would not be good art. They can be discussed as facts of 
life. 

But these actions and their causes and consequences open 
the widest horizons to a thoughtful critic, for an appre- 
ciation of both the ideals and the prejudices of society, for 
the analysis of passions, for a discussion of the types of men 
and women which prevail at a given moment. In fact, a good 
work of art gives material for discussing nearly the whole 
of the mutual relations in a society of a given type. The 
author, if he is a thoughtful poet, has himself either con- 
sciously or often unconsciously considered all that. It is his 
life-experience which he gives in his work. Why, then, should 
not the critic bring before the reader all those thoughts 
which must have passed through the author's brain, or have 



LITERARY CRITICISM 287 

affected him unconsciously when he produced these scenes, 
or pictured that corner of human life? 

This is what Russian literary critics have been doing for 
the last fifty years; and as the field of fiction and poetry is 
unlimited, there is not one of the great social and human 
problems which they must not thus have discussed in their 
critical reviews. This is also why the works of the four 
critics just named are as eagerly read and re-read now at 
this moment as they were twenty or fifty years ago: they 
have lost nothing of their freshness and interest. If art is 
a school of life — the more so are such works. 

It is extremely interesting to note that art-critlcism in 
Russia took from the very outset (in the twenties) and quite 
independently of all imitation of Western Europe, the char- 
acter of philosophical asthetics. The revolt against pseudo- 
classicism had only just begun under the banner of romanti- 
cism, and the appearance of Pushkin's Rusldn and Liidmila 
had just given the first practical argument in favour of the 
romantic rebels, when the poet Venevitinoff (see Ch. 
II.), soon followed by Nadezhdin (1804-1856) and Pole- 
VOY (1796-1846) — the real founder of serious journalism 
in Russia — laid the foundations of new art-criticism. Liter- 
ary criticism, they maintained, must analyse, not only the 
aesthetic value of a work of art, but, above all, its leading 
idea — its " philosophical," — its social meaning. 

Venevitinoff, whose own poetry bore such a high intel- 
lectual stamp, boldly attacked the absence of higher ideas 
among the Russian romantics, and wrote that " the true 
poets of all nations have always been philosophers who 
reached the highest summits of culture." A poet who is satis- 
fied with his own self, and does not pursue aims of general 
improvement, is of no use to his contemporaries.* 

Nadezhdin followed on the same lines , and boldly 
attacked Pushkin for his absence of higher inspiration and 
for producing a poetry of which the only motives were 
" wine and women." He reproached our romantics with 

* I borrow these remarks about the predecessors of Byelinskly from 
an article on Literary Criticism in Russia, by Professor Ivanoff, in the 
Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary ^ Vol. 32, 771. 



288 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

an absence of ethnographical and historic truth in their 
work, and the meanness of the subjects they chose In their 
poetry. As to Polevoy, he was so great an admirer of the 
poetry of Byron and Victor Hugo that he could not pardon 
Pushkin and Gogol the absence of higher Ideas In their work. 
Having nothing In It that might raise men to higher Ideas 
and actions, their work could stand no comparison whatever 
with the Immortal creations of Shakespeare, Hugo, and 
Goethe. This absence of higher leading Ideas In the work 
of Pushkin and Gogol so much Impressed the last two critics 
that they did not even notice the Immense service which these 
founders of Russian literature were rendering to us by Intro- 
ducing that sound naturalism and realism which have 
become since a distinctive feature of Russian art, and the 
need of which both Nadezhdin and Polevoy were the first 
to recognise. It was Byelinskly who had to take up their 
work, to complete It, and to show what was the technique 
of really good art, and what its contents ought to be. 

To say that ByelInskiy (1810-1848) was a very gifted 
art-critic would thus mean nothing. He was in reality, at 
a very significant moment of human evolution, a teacher and 
an educator of Russian society, not only In art — Its value, its 
purport, its comprehension — but also in politics. In social 
questions, and in humanitarian aspirations. 

He was the son of an obscure army-surgeon, and spent 
his childhood in a remote province of Russia. Well prepared 
by his father, who knew the value of knowledge, he entered 
the university of St. Petersburg, but was excluded from it 
in 1832 for a tragedy which he wrote, in the style of 
Schiller's Robbers, and which was an energetic protest 
against serfdom. Already he had joined the circle of 
Herzen, Ogaryoff, Stankevitch, etc., and in 1834 •he began 
his literary career by a critical review of literature which 
at once attracted notice. From that time till his death he 
wrote critical articles and bibliographical notes for some 
of the leading reviews, and he worked so extremely hard 
that at the age of thirty-eight he died from consumption. He 
did not die too soon. The revolution had broken out in West- 
ern Europe, and when Byelinskiy was on his deathbed an 
agent of the State-police would call from time to time to 



LITERARY CRITICISM 289 

ascertain whether he was still alive. The order was given to 
arrest him, if he should recover, and his fate certainly would 
have been the fortress and at the best — exile. 

When Byelinskiy first began to write he was entirely 
under the influence of the Idealistic German philosophy. He 
was inclined to maintain that Art is something too great and 
too pure to have anything to do with the questions of the 
day. It was a reproduction of " the general idea of the life 
of nature." Its problems were those of the Universe — not 
of poor men and their petty events. It was from this Idealistic 
point of view of Beauty and Truth that he exposed the main 
principles of Art, and explained the process of artistic crea- 
tion. In a series of articles on Pushkin he wrote, In fact, a 
history of Russian literature down to Pushkin, from that 
point of view. 

Holding such abstract views, Byelinskiy even came, dur- 
ing his stay at Moscow, to consider, with Hegel, that " all 
that which exists is reasonable," and to preach " reconcilia- 
tion " with the despotism of Nicholas I. However, under 
the Influence of Herzen and Bakunin he soon shook off the 
fogs of German metaphysics, and, removing to St. Peters- 
burg, opened a new page of his activity. 

Under the Impression produced upon him by the realism 
of Gogol, whose best works were just appearing, he came to 
understand that true poetry is real : that it must be a poetry 
of life and of reality. And under the influence of the political 
movement which was going on in France he arrived at 
advanced political ideas. He was a great master of style, 
and whatever he wrote was so full of energy, and at the 
same time bore so truly the stamp of his most sympathetic 
personality, that it always produced a deep impression upon 
his readers. And now all his aspirations towards what is 
grand and high, and all his boundless love of truth, which 
he formerly had given in the service of personal self- 
improvement and Ideal Art, were given to the service of 
man within the poor conditions of Russian reality. He 
pitilessly analysed that reality, and wherever he saw in the 
literary works which passed under his eyes, or only felt, 
insincerity, haughtiness, absence of general interest, attach- 
ment to old-age despotism, or slavery in any form — includ- 



290 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

ing the slavery of woman — he fought these evils with all 
his energy and passion. He thus became a political writer in 
the best sense of the word at the same time that he was an 
art-critic; he became a teacher of the highest humanitarian 
principles. 

In his Letter to Gogol concerning the latter's Correspond- 
ence with Friends (see Ch. III.) he gave quite a programme 
of urgent social and political reforms; but his days were 
numbered. His review of the literature for the year 1847, 
which was especially beautiful and deep, was his last work. 
Death spared him from seeing the dark cloud of reaction 
in which Russia was wrapped from 1848 to 1855. 

ValeriAn Maykoff (1823-1847), who promised to 
become a critic of great power on the same lines as Byelin- 
skiy, died unfortunately too young, and it was Tchernyshev- 
skiy, soon followed by Dobroluboff, who continued and 
further developed the work of Byelinskly and his prede- 
cessors. 

The leading Idea of Tchernyshevskiy was that art can- 
not be Its own aim; that life is superior to art; and that the 
aim of art Is to explain life, to comment upon it, and to 
express an opinion about it. He developed these ideas in a 
thoughtful and stimulating work, The Esthetic Relations of 
Art to Reality, In which he demolished the current theories of 

t aesthetics, and gave a realistic definition of the Beautiful. 

\ The sensation — he wrote — which the Beautiful awakens in 
us Is a feeling of bright happiness, similar to that which 
is awakened by the presence of a beloved being. It must 
therefore contain something dear to us, and that dear some- 
thing Is life, " To say that that which we name * Beauty * 
is life; that that being is beautiful in which we see life — 
life as It ought to be according to our conception — and that 
object Is beautiful which speaks to us of life — this defini- 
tion, we should think, satisfactorily explains all cases which 
awaken In us the feeling of the beautiful." The conclusion 
to be drawn from such a definition was that the beautiful 
in art, far from being superior to the beautiful In life, can 
only represent that conception of the beautiful which the 
artist has borrowed from life. As to the aim of art it is 



LITERARY CRITICISM 291 

much the same as that of science, although Its means of 
action are different. The true aim of art Is to remind us of 
what Is Interesting In human life, and to teach us how men 
live and how they ought to live. This last part of Tcherny- 
shevskly teachings was especially developed by Dobroluboff. 

DoBROLUBOFF ( 1 83 6-1 86 1 ) was born In Nizhniy Nov- 
gorod, where his father was a parish priest, and he received 
his education first In a clerical school, and after that in a 
seminarlum. In 1853 he went to St. Petersburg and entered 
the Pedagogical Institute. His mother and father died the 
next year, and he had then to maintain all his brothers and 
sisters. Lessons, for which he was paid ridiculously low 
prices, and translations, almost equally badly paid — all that 
in addition to his student's duties — meant working terribly 
hard, and this broke down his health at an early age. In 
1855 he made the acquaintance of Tchernyshevskiy and, 
having finished in 1857 his studies at the Institute, he took 
In hand the critical department of The Contemporary, and 
again worked passionately. Four years later. In November, 
1 861, he died, at the age of twenty-five, having literally killed 
himself by overwork, leaving four volumes of critical essays, 
each of which Is a serious original work. Such essays as The 
Kingdom of Darkness, A Ray of Light, What is Oblomof- 
dom ? When comes the Real Day f had especially a profound 
effect on the development of the youth of those times. 

Not that Dobroluboff had a very definite criterion of 
literary criticism, or that he had a very distinct programme 
as to what was to be done. But he was one of the 
purest and the most solid representatives of that type 
of new men — the realist-idealist, whom Turgueneff saw 
coming by the end of the fifties. Therefore, in whatever he 
wrote one felt the thoroughly moral and thoroughly reliable, 
slightly ascetic " rigourist " who judged all facts of life from 
the standard of — " What good will they bring to the toiling 
masses? " or, " How will they favour the creation of men 
whose eyes are directed that way? " His attitude towards 
professional aesthetics was most contemptuous, but he felt 
deeply himself and enjoyed the great works of art. He did 
not condemn Pushkin for his levity, or Gogol for his absence 
of Ideals. He did not advise anyone to write novels or poems 



292 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

with a set purpose : he knew the results would be poor. He 
admitted that the great geniuses were right in creating uncon- 
sciously, because he understood that the real artist creates 
only when he has been struck by this or that aspect of reality. 
He asked only from a work of art, whether it truly and cor- 
rectly reproduced life, or not? If not, he passed it by; but 
if It did truly represent life, then he wrote essays about this 
life; and his articles were essays on moral, political or 
economical matters — the work of art yielding only the facts 
for such a discussion. This explains the Influence Dobro- 
luboff exercised upon his contemporaries. Such essays written 
by such a personality were precisely what was wanted in 
the turmoil of those years for preparing better men for the 
coming struggles. They were a school of political and moral 
education. 

PiSAREFF ( 1 841-1868), the critic who succeeded, so to 
speak, Dobroluboff, was a quite different man. He was born 
in a rich family of landlords and had received an education 
during which he had never known what it meant to want 
anything; but he soon realised the drawbacks of such a life, 
and when he was at the St. Petersburg university he aban- 
doned the rich house of his uncle and settled with a poor 
student comrade, or lived In an apartment with a number 
of other students — writing amidst their noisy discussions or 
songs. Like Dobroluboff, he worked excessively hard, and 
astonished everyone by his varied knowledge and the facility 
with which he acquired it. In 1862, when reaction was begin- 
ning to reappear, he permitted a comrade to print In a secret 
printing office an article of his — the criticism of some reac- 
tionary political pamphlet — which article had not received 
the authorisation of the censorship. The secret printing office 
was seized, and Pisareff was locked for four years In the 
fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. There he wrote all that 
made him widely known In Russia. When he came out of 
prison his health was already broken, and in the summer of 
1868 he was drowned while bathing in one of the Baltic 
sea-side resorts. 

Upon the Russian youth of his own time, and consequently 
on whatever share, as men and women later on, they brought 
to the general progress of the country, Pisareff exercised an 



LITERARY CRITICISM 293 

influence which was as great as that of Byeh[nskiy, Tcherny- 
shevskiy, and Dobroluboff. Here again it is impossible to 
determine the character and the cause of this influence by 
merely referring to Pisareff's canons in art^ criticism. His 
leading ideas on this subject can be explained in a few 
words; his ideal was "the thoughtful realist "—the type 
w^hich Turgueneff had just represented in Bazaroff, and 
which Pisareff further developed in his critical essays. He 
shared Bazaroff's low opinion of art, but, as a concession, 
demanded that Russian art should, at least, reach the heights 
which art had reached with Goethe, Heine and Borne in 
elevating mankind — or else that those who are always talk- 
ing of art, but can produce nothing approaching it, should 
rather give their forces to something more within their 
reach. This is why he devoted most elaborate articles to 
depreciating the futile poetry of Pushkin. In ethics he was 
entirely at one with the " Nihilist " Bazaroff, who bowed 
before no authority but that of his own reason. And he 
thought (like Bazaroff in a conversation with Pavel Petro- 
vitch) that the main point, at that given moment, was to 
develop the thorough, scientifically-educated realist, who 
would break with all the traditions and mistakes of the olden 
time, and w^ould work, looking upon human life with the 
sound common-sense of a realist. He even did something 
himself to spread the sound natural science knowledge that 
had suddenly developed in those years, and wrote a most 
remarkable exposition of Darwinism in a series of articles 
entitled Progress in the World of Plants and Animals, 

But — to quote the perfectly correct estimate of Ska- 
bitchevskiy — " all this does not, however, determine 
Pisareff's position In Russian literature. In all this he only 
embodied a certain moment of the development of Russian 
youth, with all its exaggerations." The real cause of Pisa- 
reff's influence was elsewhere, and may be best explained 
by the following example. There appeared a novel in which 
the author had told how a girl, good-hearted, honest, but 
quite uneducated, quite commonplace as to her conceptions 
of happiness and life, and full of the current society- 
prejudices, fell in love, and was brought to all sorts of mis- 
fortunes. This girl — Pisareff at once understood — was not 



294 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

invented. Thousands upon thousands of like girls exist, and 
their lives have the same run. They are — he said — " Muslin 
Girls." Their conception of the universe does not go much 
beyond their muslin dresses. And he reasoned, how with 
their " muslin education " and their " muslin-girl concep- 
tions," they must unavoidably come to grief. And by this 
article, which every girl in every educated family in Russia 
read, and reads still, he Induced thousands upon thousands 
of Russian girls to say to themselves: "No, never will I 
be like that poor muslin girl. I will conquer knowledge; I 
will think; and I will make for myself a better future." Each 
of his articles had a similar effect. It gave to the young mind 
the first shock. It opened the young man's and the young 
woman's eyes to those thousands of details of life which 
habit makes us cease to perceive, but the sum of which makes 
precisely that stifling atmosphere under which the heroines 
of " Krestovskiy-pseudonym " used to wither. From that 
life, which could promise only deception, dulness and vege- 
tative existence, he called the youth of both sexes to a life 
full of the light of knowledge, a life of work, of broad 
views and sympathies, which was now opened for the 
** thoughtful realist." 

The time has not yet come to fully appreciate the work of 
MiHAiLOVSKiY (1842-1904), who In the seventies became 
the leading critic, and remained so till his death. Moreover, 
his proper position could not be understood without my enter- 
ing into many details concerning the character of the intel- 
lectual movement in Russia for the last thirty years, and this 
movement has been extremely complex. Suffice it to say that 
with Mihailovskiy literary criticism took a philosophical turn. 
Within this period Spencer's philosophy had produced a 
deep sensation in Russia, and Mihailovskiy submitted it to 
a severe analysis from the anthropological standpoint, show- 
ing its weak points and working out his own Theory of 
Progress, which will certainly be spoken of with respect in 
Western Europe when it becomes known outside Russia. 
His very remarkable articles on Individualism, on Heroes 
I and the Crowd, on Happiness, have the same philosophical 
I value; while even from the few quotations from his Left 
I and Right Hand of Count Tolstoy, which were given in 



LITERARY CRITICISM 295 

a preceding chapter, it is easy to see which way his sym- 
pathies go. 

Of the other critics of the same tendencies I shall only 
name Skabitchevskiy (born 1838), the author of a very 
well written history of modern Russian literature, already 
mentioned in these pages; K. Arsenieff (born 1837), 
whose Critical Studies (1888) are the more interesting as 
they deal at some length with some of the less known poets 
and the younger contemporary writers; and P. PoLEVOY 
( 1 839-1903), the author of many historical novels and of 
a popular and quite valuable History of the Russian Litera- 
ture; but I am compelled to pass over In silence the valuable 
critical work done by Druzhinin (1824-1864) after the 
death of Byelinskly, as also A. Grigorieff (i 822-1 864), 
a brilliant and original critic from the Slavophile camp. They 
both took the '' aesthetlcal " point of view and combated the 
utilitarian views upon Art, but had no great success. 

Tolstoy's "what is art?" 

It Is thus seen that for the last eighty years, beginning 
with Venevitlnoff and Nadezhdin, Russian art-critics have 
worked to establish the idea that art has a raison 3! etre only 
when it is " in the service of society " and contributes 
towards raising society to higher humanitarian conceptions 
— by those means which are proper to art, and distinguish 
It from science. This Idea which so much shocked Western 
readers when Proudhon developed it has been advocated 
in Russia by all those who have exercised a real influence 
upon critical judgment in art matters. And they were sup- 
ported de facto by some of our greatest poets, such as 
Lermontoff and Turgueneff. As to the critics of the other 
camp, like Druzhinin, Annenkoff and A. Grlggrleff, who 
took either the opposite view of " art for art's sake,'* or 
some Intermediate view — who preached that the criterlum 
of art is " The Beautiful " and clung to the theories of the 
German aesthetlcal writers — they have had no hold upon 
Russian thought. 

The metaphysics of the German aesthetlcal writers was 
more than once demolished in the opinion of Russian readers 



296 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

— especially by Byelinskly, In his Review of Literature for 
iS^y^ and by Tchernyshevskiy In his Msthetic Relations of 
Art to Reality. In this Review Byelinskly fully developed 
his Ideas concerning Art In the service of mankind, and 
proved that although Art Is not Identical with Science, and 
differs from It by the way It treats the facts of life, It never- 
theless has with It a common aim. The man of science demon' 
strates — the poet shows; but both convince; the one by his 
arguments, the other — by his scenes from life. The same was 
done by Tchernyshevskiy when he maintained that the aim 
of Art is not unlike that of History : that it explains to us life, 
and that consequently Art which should merely reproduce 
facts of life without adding to our compensation of it 
would not be Art at all. 

These few remarks will explain why Tolstoy's What is 
Art? produced much less Impression in Russia than abroad. 
What struck us in it was not its leading idea, which was 
quite familiar to us, but the fact that the great artist also 
made it his own, and was supporting it by all the weight 
of his artistic experience; and then, of course, the literary 
form he gave the idea. Moreover, we read with the greatest 
interest his witty criticisms of both the " decadent " would-be 
poets and the librettos of Wagner's operas ; to which latter, 
let me add by the way, Wagner wrote, in places, wonderfully 
beautiful music, as soon as he came to deal with the univer- 
sal human passions, — love, compassion, envy, the joy of life, 
and so on, and forgot all about his fairy-tale background. 

What is Art? offered the more interest in Russia because 
the defenders of pure Art and the haters of the " nihilists 
in Art " had been accustomed to quote Tolstoy as of their 
camp. In his youth Indeed he seems not to have had very 
definite ideas about Art. At any rate, when, in 1859, he was 
received as a member of the Sociey of Friends of Russian 
Literature, he pronounced a speech on the necessity of not 
dragging Art Into the smaller disputes of the day, to which 
the Slavophile Homyakoff replied in a fiery speech, contest- 
ing his ideas with great energy. 

" There are moments — great historic moments " — Homyakoff 
said — "when self-denunciation (he meant on the part of Society) 



LITERARY CRITICISM 297 

has especial, incontestable rights. . . . The * accidental ' and the 
* temporary ' in the historical development of a nation's life acquire 
then the meaning of the universal and the broadly human, because 
all generations and all nations can understand, and do understand, 
the painful moans and the painful confessions of a given generation 
or a given nation." ..." An artist " — he continued — " is not 
a theory; he is not a mere domain of thought and cerebral activity. 
He is a man — always a man of his own time — usually one of its best 
representatives . . . Owing to the very impressionability of his 
organism, without u^hich he would not have been an artist, he, more 
than the others, receives both the painful and the pleasant impressions 
of the Society in the midst of which he was bom." 

Showing that Tolstoy had already taken just this stand- 
point in some of his works; for example, In describing the 
death of the horse-driver In Three Deaths, Homyakoff con- 
cluded by saying: " Yes, you have been, and you will be one 
of those who denounce the evils of Society. Continue to 
follow the excellent way you have chosen."* 

At any rate, In What is Art? Tolstoy entirely breaks with 
the theories of " Art for Art's sake," and makes an open 
stand by the side of those whose Ideas have been expounded 
in the preceding pages. He only defines still more correctly 
the domain of Art when he says that the artist always alms 
at communicating to others the same feelings which he 
experiences at the sight of nature or of human life. Not to 
convince, as Tchernyshevskly said, but to infect the others 
with his own feelings, which Is certainly more correct. How- 
ever, " feeling " and " thought " are Inseparable. A feeling 
seeks words to express Itself, and a feeling expressed In words 
Is a thought. And when Tolstoy says that the aim of artistic 
activity Is to transmit " the highest feelings which humanity 

* The speech of Homyakoff is reproduced in Skabitchevskly's His- 
tory (1. c). I was very anxious to get Tolstoy's speech, because I 
think that the ideas he expressed about *' the permanent in Art, the 
universal " hardly did exclude the denunciation of the ills from which 
a society suffers at a given moment. Perhaps he meant what Nekrasoff 
also meant when he described the literature to which Schedrin's 
Provincial Sketches had given origin as " a flagellation of the petty 
thieves for the pleasure of the big ones." Unfortunately, this speech 
was not printed, and the manuscript of it could not be found. 



298 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

has attained " and that Art must be " religious " — that Is, 
wake up the highest and the best aspirations — he only 
expresses In other words what all our best critics since Vene- 
vitlnoff, Nadezhdin and Polevoy have said. In fact, when he 
complains that nobody teaches men how to live, he overlooks 
that that Is precisely what good Art Is doing, and what our 
art-crltlcs have always done. Byelinskly, Dobroluboff and 
Pisareff, and their contlnuators have done nothing but to 
teach men how to live. They studied and analysed life, as 
It had been understood by the greatest artists of each cen- 
tury, and they drew from their works conclusions as to " how 
to live.'' 

More than this. When Tolstoy, armed with his powerful 
criticism, chastises what he so well describes as " counter- 
feits of Art," he continues the work that Tchernyshevskly, 
Dobroluboff and especially Pisareff had done. He sides with 
Bazaroff. Only, this intervention of the great artist gives a 
more deadly blow to the " Art for Art's sake " theory still 
in vogue In Western Europe than anything that Proudhon 
or our Russian critics, unknown In the West, could possibly 
have done. 

As to Tolstoy's idea concerning the value of a work of 
Art being measured by its accessibility to the great number, 
which has been so fiercely attacked on all sides, and even 
ridiculed — this assertion, although it has perhaps not yet 
been very well expressed, contains, I believe, the germs of a 
great idea which sooner or later Is certain to make its way. 
It is evident that every form of art has a certain conven- 
tional way of expressing Itself — Its own way of " infecting 
others with the artist's feelings," and therefore requires a 
certain training to understand it. Tolstoy is hardly right in 
overlooking the fact that some training is required for rightly 
comprehending even the simplest forms of art, and his 
criterion of " universal understanding " seems therefore far- 
fetched. 

However, there lies in what he says a deep Idea. Tolstoy 
is certainly right in asking why the Bible has not yet been 
superseded, as a work of Art accessible to everyone. MIchelet 
had already made a similar remark, and had said that what 
was wanted by our century was Le Livre, The Book, which 



LITERARY CRITICISM 299 

shall contain In a great, poetical form accessible to all, the 
embodiment of nature with all her glories and of the his- 
tory of all mankind In Its deepest human features. Humboldt 
had aimed at this In his Cosmos; but grand though his work 
is, it is accessible to only the very few. It was not he who 
should transfigure science Into poetry. And we have no work 
of Art which even approaches this need of modern mankind. 
The reason Is self-evident: Because Art has become too 
artificial; because, being chiefly for the rich. It has too much 
specialised Its ways of expression, so as to be understood 
by the few only. In this respect Tolstoy is absolutely right. 
Take the mass of excellent works that have been mentioned 
in this book. How very few of them will ever become acces- 
sible to a large public ! The fact is, that a new Art is indeed 
required. And it will come when the artist, having under- 
stood this idea of Tolstoy's, shall say to himself: " I may 
write highly philosophical works of art in which I depict 
the inner drama of the highly educated and refined man of 
our own times ; I may write works which contain the highest 
poetry of nature, involving a deep knowledge and com- 
prehension of the life of nature; but, if I can write such 
things, I must also be able, if I am a true artist, to speak 
to all: to write other things which will be as deep in con- 
ception as these, but which everyone. Including the humblest 
miner or peasant, will be able to understand and enjoy! '* 
To say that a folk-song is greater Art than a Beethoven 
sonata Is not correct: we cannot compare a storm in the 
Alps, and the struggle against it, with a fine, quite mid- 
summer day and hay-making. But truly great Art, which, 
notwithstanding its depth and its lofty flight, will penetrate 
into every peasant's hut and Inspire everyone with higher 
conceptions of thought and life — such an Art is really 
wanted. 



300 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

SOME CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS 

It does not enter Into the plan of this book to analyse 
contemporary Russian writers. Another volume would be 
required to do them justice, not only on account of the 
literary Importance of some of them, and the Interest of 
the various directions In Art which they represent, but 
especially because In order to properly explain the char- 
acter of the present literature, and the different currents In 
Russian Art, It would be necessary to enter Into many details 
concerning the unsettled conditions under which the country 
has been living during the last thirty years. Moreover, most 
of the contemporary writers have not yet said their last 
word, and we can expect from them works of even greater 
value than any they have hitherto produced. I am compelled, 
therefore, to limit myself to brief remarks concerning the 
most prominent living novelists of the present day. 

Oertel (born 1855) has unfortunately abandoned liter- 
ature during the last few years, just at a time when his last 
novel, Smyena (Changing Guards), had given proofs of a 
further development of his sympathetic talent. He was born 
in the borderland of the Russian Steppes, and was brought 
up on one of the large estates of this region. Later on he 
went to the university of St. Petersburg and, as a matter of 
fact, was compelled to leave it after some " students' dis- 
orders," and was interned in the town of Tver. He soon 
returned, however, to his native Steppe region, which he 
cherishes with the same love as NIkitIn and Koltsoff. 

Oertel began his literary career by short sketches which 
are now collected in two volumes under the name of Note- 
book of a Prairie-Man, and whose manner suggests Tur- 
gueneff's Sportsman^ s Notebook. The nature of the prairies 
is admirably described In these little stories, with great 
warmth and poetry, and the types of peasants who appear 
in the stories are perfectly true to nature, without any 
attempts at Idealisation, although one feels that the author 
Is no great admirer of the " intellectuals " and fully appre- 
ciates the general ethics of rural life. Some of these sketches, 
especially those which deal with the growing bougeoisie du 
village, are highly artistic. Two Couples (1887), i^ which 



CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS 301 

the parallel stories of tvvo young couples In love — one of 
educated people and the other of peasants — are given, Is a 
story evidently written under the Influence of the ideas of 
Tolstoy, and bearing traces of a preconceived Idea, which 
spoils In places the artistic value of the novel. There are 
nevertheless admirable scenes, testifying to very fine powers 
of observation. 

However, the real force of Oertel is not In discussing 
psychological problems. His true domain is the description 
of whole regions, wnth all the variety of types of men 
which one finds amidst the mixed populations of South 
Russia, and this force appears at its best in The Gardenins, 
their Retainers, their Followers, and their Enemies, and in 
Changing Guards. Russian critics have, of course, very seri- 
ously and very minutely discussed the young heroes, Efrem 
and Nicholas, who appear in The Gardenins, and they have 
made a rigorous Inquiry into the ways of thinking of these 
young men. But this is of a quite secondary importance, and 
one almost regrets that the author, paying a tribute to his 
times, has given the two young men more attention than they 
deserve, being only two more Individuals in the great picture 
of country life which he has drawn for us. The fact is, that 
just as we have in Gogol's tales quite a world opening before 
us — a Little Russian village, or provincial life — so also here 
we see, as the very title of the novel suggests, the whole life 
of a large estate at the times of serfdom, with its mass of 
retainers, followers and foes, all grouped round the horse- 
breeding establishment which makes the fame of the estate 
and the pride of all connected with it. It is the life of that 
crowd of people, the life at the horse-fairs and the races, not 
the discussions or the loves of a couple of young men, which 
makes the main interest of the picture ; and that life is really 
reproduced in as masterly a manner as It Is In a good Dutch 
picture representing some village fair. No writer in Russia 
since Serghei Aksakoff and Gogol has so well succeeded in 
painting a whole corner of Russia with its scores of figures, 
all living and all placed in those positions of relative impor- 
tance which they occupy in real life. 

The same power Is felt In Changing Guards. The subject 
of this novel is very interesting. It shows how the old noble 



302 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

families disintegrate, like their estates, and how another 
class of men — merchants and unscrupulous adventurers — get 
possession of these estates, while a new class made up of the 
younger merchants and clerks, who are beginning to be 
inspired with some Ideas of freedom and higher culture, con- 
stitutes already the germ of a new stratum of the educated 
classes. In this novel, too, some critics fastened their atten- 
tion chiefly on the undoubtedly Interesting types of the 
aristocratic girl, the Non-conformist peasant whom she 
begins to love, the practical Radical young merchant — all 
painted quite true to life; but they overlooked what makes 
the real importance of the novel. Here again we have quite 
a region of South Russia (as typical as the Far West is in 
the United States), throbbing with life and full of living 
men and women, as It was some twenty years after the libera- 
tion of the serfs, when a new life, not devoid of some 
American features, was beginning to appear. The contrast 
between this young life and the decaying mansion is very 
well reproduced, too. In the romances of the young people — 
the whole bearing the stamp of the most sympathetic indi- 
viduality of the author. 

KoROLENKO was born (in 1853) in a small town of West- 
ern Russia, and there he received his first education. In 
1872 he was at the Agricultural Academy of Moscow, but 
was compelled to leave after having taken part in some 
students' movement. Later on he was arrested as a " politi- 
cal," and exiled, first to a small town of the Urals, and then 
to Western Siberia, and from there, after his refusal to 
take the oath of allegiance to Alexander III., he was trans- 
ported to a Yakut encampment several hundred miles beyond 
Yakutsk. There he spent several years, and when he returned 
to Russia in 1886, not being allowed to stay in University 
towns, he settled at Nizhniy Novgorod. 

Life in the far north, in the deserts of Yakutsk, in a small 
encampment buried for half the year in the snow, produced 
upon Korolenko an extremely deep impression, and the little 
stories which he wrote about Siberian subjects ( The Dream 
of Makdr, The Man from Sakhalin, etc.) , were so beautiful 
that he was unanimously recognised as a true heir to Tur- 



CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS 303 

gueneff. There is in the little stories of Korolenko a force, 
a sense of proportion, a mastery in depicting the characters, 
and an artistic finish, which not only distinguish him from 
most of his young contemporaries, but reveal in him a true 
artist. JVhat the Forest Says, in which he related a dramatic 
episode from serfdom times in Lithuania, only further con- 
firmed the high reputation which Korolenko had already 
won. It is not an imitation of Turgueneff, and yet It at 
once recalled, by its comprehension of the life of the 
forest, the great novelist's beautiful sketch, The Woodlands 
(Polyesie). In Bad Society Is evidently taken from the 
author's childhood, and this Idyll among tramps and thieves 
who concealed themselves In the ruins of some tower Is of 
such beauty, especially In the scenes with children, that 
everyone found In it a truly " Turgueneff charm." But then 
Korolenko came to a halt. His Blind Musician was read In 
all languages, and admired — again for Its charm ; but It was 
felt that the over-refined psychology of this novel Is hardly 
correct; and no greater production worthy of the extremely 
sympathetic and rich talent of Korolenko has appeared since, 
while his attempts at producing a larger and more elaborate 
romance were not crowned with success. 

This Is somewhat striking, but the same would have to 
be said of all the contemporaries of Korolenko, among whom 
there are men and women of great talent. To analyse the 
causes of this fact, especially with reference to so great an 
artist as Korolenko, would certainly be a tempting task. But 
this would require speaking at some length of the change 
which took place In the Russian novel during the last twenty 
years or so. In connection with the political life of the coun- 
try. A few hints will perhaps explain what Is meant. In the 
seventies quite a special sort of novel had been created by a 
number of young novelists — mostly contributors of the 
review, Russkoye Slovo. The " thoughtful realist " — such as 
he was understood by Pisareff — was their hero, and however 
Imperfect the technique of these novels might have been In 
some cases, their leading Idea was most honest, and the 
Influence they exercised upon Russian youth was In the right 
direction. This was the time when Russian women were 
making their first steps towards higher education, and trying 



304 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

to conquer some sort of economical and Intellectual Inde- 
pendence. To attain this, they had to sustain a bitter struggle 
against their elders. " Madame Kabanova " and " Dikoy " 
(see Ch. VI.) were alive then in a thousand guises, In all 
classes of society, and our women had to struggle hard 
against their parents and relatives, who did not understand 
their children; against "Society" as a whole, which hated 
the " emancipated woman " ; and against the Government, 
which only too well foresaw the dangers that a new genera- 
tion of educated women would represent for an autocratic 
bureaucracy. It was of the first necessity, then, that at least 
in the men of the same generation the young fighters for 
women's rights should find helpers, and not that sort of 
men about whom Turgueneff's heroine In Correspondence 
wrote (see Ch. IV.). In this direction — especially after the 
splendid beginning that was made by two women writers, 
Sophie Smirnova ( The Little Fire, The Salt of the Earth) 
and Olga Shapir — our men-novelists have done good serv- 
ice, both in maintaining the energy of women in their hard 
struggle and in inspiring men with respect towards that 
struggle and those who fought in it. 

Later on a new element became prominent in the Rus- 
sian novel. It was the " populist " element — love to the 
masses of tollers, work among them In order to introduce, 
be it the slightest spark of light and hope. Into their sad 
existence. Again the novel contributed immensely to maintain 
that movement and to inspire men and women In that sort 
of work, an instance of which has been given on a preceding 
page, in speaking of The Great Bear. The workers in both 
these fields were numerous, and I can only name in passing 
MoRDOVTSEFF (in Signs of the Times), Scheller, who 
wrote under the name of A. MikhAiloff, Stanukovitch, 
NovoDvoRSKiY, Barantsevitch, Matchtett, MAmin, 
and the poet, NAdson_, who all, either directly or Indirectly, 
worked through the novel and poetry In the same direction. 

However, the struggle for liberty which was begun about 
1857, after having reached Its culminating point in 1881, 
came to a temporary end, and for the next ten years a com- 
plete prostration spread amidst the Russian " intellectuals.'* 
Faith in the old ideals and the old Inspiring watchwords — 



CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS 305 

even faith in men — was passing away, and new tendencies 
began to make their way in Art — partly under the influence 
of this phase of the Russian movement, and partly also under 
the influence of Western Europe. A sense of fatigue became 
evident. Faith in knowledge was shaken. Social ideals were 
relegated to the background. *' Rigourism " was condemned, 
and " popularism " began to be represented as ludicrous, or, 
when it reappeared, it was in some religious form, as Tol- 
stoyism. Instead of the former enthusiasm for " mankind," 
the " rights of the individual '' were proclaimed, which 
" rights " did not mean equal rights for all, but the rights 
of the few over all the others. 

In these unsettled conditions of social ideas our younger 
novelists — always anxious to reflect in their art the ques- 
tions of the day — have had to develop; and this confusion 
necessarily stands in the way of their producing anything 
as definite and as complete as did their predecessors of the 
previous generation. There have been no such complete indi- 
vidualities in society; and a true artist is incapable of 
inventing what does not exist. 

Dmitriy Merzhkovskiy (born 1866) may be taken to 
illustrate the difliculties which a writer, even when endowed 
with a by no means ordinary talent, found in reaching his 
full development under the social and political conditions 
which prevailed in Russia during the period just mentioned. 
Leaving aside his poetry — although it is also very character- 
istic — and taking only his novels and critical articles, we see 
how, after having started with a certain sympathy, or at least 
with a certain respect, for those Russian writers of the pre- 
vious generation who wrote under the inspiration of higher 
social ideals, Merezhkovskiy gradually began to suspect these 
ideals, and finally ended by treating them with contempt. 
He found that they were of no avail, and he began to speak 
more and more of " the sovereign rights of the individual," 
but not in the sense in which they were understood by Godwin 
and other eighteenth century philosophers, nor in the sense 
which Pisareff attributed to them when he spoke of the 
" thoughtful realist " ; Merezhovskiy took them in the 
sense — desperately vague, and narrow when not vague — 



3o6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

attributed to them by Nietzsche. At the same time he began 
to speak more and more of " Beauty " and " the worship of 
the Beautiful," but again not In the sense which Idealists 
attributed to such words, but in the limited, erotic sense in 
which " Beauty " was understood by the " ^Esthetics " of 
the leisured class In the forties. 

The main work which Merezhkovskiy undertook offered 
great interest. He began a trilogy of novels in which he 
intended to represent the struggle of the antique pagan world 
against Christianity: on the one hand, the Hellenic love and 
poetic comprehension of nature, and its worship of sound, 
exuberant life; and on the other, the life-depressing Influ- 
ences of Judaic Christianity, with its condemnation of the 
study of nature, of poetry, art, pleasure, and sound, healthy 
life altogether. The first novel of the trilogy was Julian the 
Apostate, and the second, Leonardo da Vinci (both have 
been translated into English). They were the result of a 
careful study of the antique Greek world and the Renais- 
sance, and notwithstanding some defects (absence of real 
feeling, even in the glorification of the worship of Beauty, 
and a certain abuse of archaeological details), both contained 
really beautiful and Impressive scenes ; while the fundamental 
idea — the necessity of a synthesis between the poetry of 
nature of the antique world and the higher humanising 
ideals of Christianity — ^was forcibly impressed upon the 
reader. 

Unfortunately, Merezhkovskiy's admiration of antique 
" Naturism " did not last. He had not yet written the third 
novel of his trilogy when modern " Symbolism " began to 
penetrate into his works, with the result that notwithstand- 
ing all his abilities the young author seems now to be drift- 
ing straight towards a hopeless mysticism, like that into 
which Gogol fell towards the end of his life. 

It may seem strange to the West Europeans, and especially 
to English readers, to hear of such a rapid succession of 
different moods of thought in Russian society, sufficiently 
deep to exercise such an influence upon the novels as has just 
been mentioned. And yet so it is, in consequence of the his- 
torical phase which Russia is living through. There is even 



CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS 307 

a very gifted novelist, Boborykin (born 1836), who has 
made it his peculiar work to describe in novels the prevailing 
moods of Russian educated society in their rapid succession 
for the last thirty years. The technique of his novels is always 
excellent (he is also the author of a good critical work, just 
published, on the influences of Western romance upon the 
Russian novel). His observations are always correct; his 
personal point of view is that of an honest advanced progres- 
sive; and his novels can always be taken as true and good 
pictures of the tendencies which prevailed at a given moment 
amongst the Russian '* intellectuals." For the history of 
thought in Russia they are simply invaluable; and they must 
have helped many a young reader to find his or her way 
amidst the various facts of life; but the variety of currents 
which have been chronicled by Boborykin would appear 
simply puzzling to a Western reader. 

Boborykin has been reproached by some critics with not 
having sufficiently distinguished between what was important 
in the facts of life which he described and what was irrele- 
vant or only ephemeral, but this is hardly correct. The 
main defect of his work lies perhaps elsewhere; namely, in 
that the individuality of the author is hardly felt in it at 
all. He seems to record the kaleidoscope of life without 
living with his heroes, and without suffering or rejoicing 
with them. He has noticed and perfectly well observed those 
persons whom he describes; his judgment of them is that of 
an intelligent, experienced man; but none of them has 
impressed him enough to become part of himself. Therefore 
they do not strike the reader with any sufficient depth of 
impression. 

One of our contemporary authors, also endowed with 
great talent, who is publishing a simply stupefying quantity 
of novels, is PotApenko. He was born in 1856, in South 
Russia, and after having studied music, he began writing in 
1 88 1, and although his later novels bear traces of too hasty 
work, he still remains a favourite writer. Amidst the dark 
colours which prevail now amongst the Russian novelists, 
Potapenko is a happy exception. Some of his novels are full 
of highly comic scenes, and compel the reader to laugh 
heartily with the author. But even when there are no such 



3o8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

scenes, and the facts are, on the contrary, sad, or even 
tragical, the effect of the novel is not depressing — perhaps 
because the author never departs from his own point of 
view of a satisfied optimist. In this respect Potapenko Is 
absolutely the opposite of most of his contemporaries, and 
especially of Tchehoff. 

A. p. TCHEHOFF 

Of all the contemporary Russian novelists A. P. Tchehoff 
(1860-1904) was undoubtedly the most deeply original. 
It was not a mere originality of stlye. His style, like that 
of every great artist, bears of course the stamp of his per- 
sonality; but he never tried to strike his readers with some 
style-effects of his own: he probably despised them, and 
he wrote with the same simplicity as Pushkin, Turgueneff 
and Tolstoy have written. Nor did he choose some special 
contents for his tales and novels, or appropriate to himself 
some special class of men. Few authors, on the contrary, have 
dealt with so wide a range of men and women, taken from all 
the layers, divisions and subdivisions of Russian society as 
Tchehoff did. And with all that, as Tolstoy has remarked, 
Tchehoff represents something of his own In art; he has 
struck a new vein, not only for Russian literature, but for 
literature altogether, and thus belongs to all nations. His 
nearest relative is Guy de Maupassant, but a certain family 
resemblance between the two writers exists only in a few of 
their short stories. The manner of Tchehoff, and especially 
the mood in which all the sketches, the short novels, and the 
dramas of Tchehoff are written, are entirely his own. And 
then, there is all the difference between the two writers which 
exists between contemporary France and Russia at that 
special period of development through which our country has 
been passing lately. 

The biography of Tchehoff can be told In a few words. He 
was born In i860, In South Russia, at Taganrog. His father 
was originally a serf, but he had apparently exceptional busi- 
ness capacities, and freed himself early in his life. To his 
son he gave a good education — first In the local gymnasium 
(college), and later on at the university of Moscow. " I did 



CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS 309 

not know much about faculties at that time," Tchehoff 
wrote once in a short biographical note, " and I don't well 
remember why I chose the medical faculty; but I never 
regretted that choice later on." He did not become a medical 
practitioner; but a year's work in a small village hospital 
near Moscow, and similar work later on, when he volun- 
teered to stand at the head of a medical district during the 
cholera epidemics of 1892, brought him Into close contact 
with a wide world of men and women of all sorts and char- 
acters; and, as he himself has noticed, his acquaintance with 
natural sciences and with the scientific method of thought 
helped him a great deal in his subsequent literary work. 

Tchehoff began his literary career very early. Already 
during the first years of his university studies — that Is, In 
1879, he began to write short humorous sketches (under the 
pseudonym of Tchehonte) for some weeklies. His talent 
developed rapidly; and the sympathy with which his first 
little volumes of short sketches was met In the Press, and the 
Interest which the best Russian critics (especially Mlkhallov- 
skiy) took In the young novelist, must have helped him to 
give a more serious turn to his creative genius. With every 
year the problems of life which he treated were deeper and 
more complicated, while the form he attained bore traces of 
an increasingly fine artistic finish. When Tchehoff died last 
year, at the age of only forty-four, his talent had already 
reached Its full maturity. His last production — a drama — 
contained such fine poetical touches, and such a mixture of 
poetical melancholy with strivings towards the joy of a well- 
filled life, that it would have seemed to open a new page in 
his creation if it were not known that consumption was 
rapidly undermining his life. 

No one has ever succeeded, as Tchehoff has. In represent- 
ing the failures of human nature In our present civilisation, 
and especially the failure, the bankruptcy of the educated 
man In the face of the all-invading meanness of everyday life. 
This defeat of the " Intellectual " he has rendered with a 
wonderful force, variety, and Impresslveness. And there lies 
the distinctive feature of his talent. 

When you read the sketches and the stories of Tchehoff 
In chronological succession, you see first an author full of 



3IO RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

the most exuberant vitality and youthful fun. The stories 
are, as a rule, very short; many of them cover only three or 
four pages; but they are full of the most Infecting merri- 
ment. Some of them are mere farces; but you cannot help 
laughing In the heartiest way, because even the most ludi- 
crous and Impossible ones are written with an inimitable 
charm. And then, gradually, amidst that same fun, comes a 
touch of heartless vulgarity on the part of some of the actors 
in the story, and you feel how the author's heart throbs with 
pain. Slowly, gradually, this note becomes more frequent; it 
claims more and more attention ; it ceases to be accidental, It 
becomes organic — till at last, In every story, in every novel, 
It stifles everything else. It may be the reckless heartlessness 
of a young man who, " for fun," will make a girl believe that 
she Is loved, or the heartlessness and absence of the most 
ordinary humanitarian feeling in the family of an old pro- 
fessor — It Is always the same note of heartlessness and mean- 
ness which resounds, the same absence of the more refined 
human feelings, or, still worse — the complete Intellectual and 
moral bankruptcy of *' the intellectual." 

Tchehoff's heroes are not people who have never heard 
better words, or never conceived better Ideas than those which 
circulate In the lowest circles of the Philistines. No, they have 
heard such words, and their hearts have beaten once upon a 
time at the sound of such words. But the common-place every- 
day life has stifled all such aspirations, apathy has taken Its 
place, and now there remains only a haphazard existence 
amidst a hopeless meanness. The meanness which Tchehoff 
represents Is the one which begins with the loss of faith in 
one's forces and the gradual loss of all those brighter hopes 
and Illusions which make the charm of all activity, and, then, 
step by step, this meanness destroys the very springs of life : 
broken hopes, broken hearts, broken energies. Man reaches 
a stage when he can only mechanically repeat certain actions 
from day to day, and goes to bed, happy If he has " killed " 
his time in any way, gradually falling Into a complete intel- 
lectual apathy, and a moral Indifference. The worst is that 
the very multiplicity of samples which Tchehoff gives, with- 
out repeating himself, from so many different layers of 
society, seems to tell the reader that it Is the rottenness of a 



CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS 311 

whole civilisation, of an epoch, which the author divulges 
to us. 

Speaking of Tchehoff, Tolstoy made the deep remark that 
he was one of those few whose novels are willingly re-read 
more than once. This is quite true. Every one of Tchehoff's 
stories — It may be the smallest bagatelle or a small novel, or 
It may be a drama — produces an impression which cannot 
easily be forgotten. At the same time they contain such a pro- 
fusion of minute detail, admirably chosen so as to Increase 
the impression, that In re-reading them one always finds a 
new pleasure. Tchehoff was certainly a great artist. Besides, 
the variety of the men and women of all classes which appear 
in his stories, and the variety of psychological subjects dealt 
in them. Is simply astounding. And yet every story bears so 
much the stamp of the author that In the most Insignificant 
of them you recognise Tchehoff, with his proper Individuality 
and manner, with his conception of men and things. 

Tchehoff has never tried to write long novels or romances. 
His domain is the short story, in which he excels. He certainly 
never tries to give in It the whole history of his heroes from 
their birth to the grave : this would not be the proper way In 
a short story. He takes one moment only from that life, only 
one episode. And he tells it in such a way that the reader for- 
ever retains in memory the type of men or women repre- 
sented; so that, when later on he meets a living specimen of 
that type, he exclaims: "But this is Tchehoff's Ivanoff, or 
Tchehoff 's Darling ! " In the space of some twenty pages 
and within the limitations of a single episode there is revealed 
a complicated psychological drama — a world of mutual rela- 
tions. Take, for instance, the very short and Impressive 
sketch. From a Doctor^s Practice. It is a story in which 
there is no story after all. A doctor is Invited to see a girl, 
whose mother is the owner of a large cotton mill. They live 
there, in a mansion close to, and within the enclosure of, the 
immense buildings. The girl Is the only child, and Is 
worshipped by her mother. But she Is not happy. Indefinite 
thoughts worry her: she Is stifled in that atmosphere. Her 
mother is also unhappy on account of her darling's unhappl- 
ness, and the only happy creature in the household Is the ex- 
governess of the girl, now a sort of lady-companion, who 



312 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

really enjoys the luxurious surroundings of the mansion and 
Its rich table. The doctor is asked to stay over the night, and 
tells to his sleepless patient that she is not bound to stay 
there: that a really well-intentioned person can find many 
places in the world where she would find an activity to suit 
her. And when the doctor leaves next morning the girl has 
put on a white dress and has a flower in her hair. She looks 
very earnest, and you guess that she meditates already about 
a new start in her life. Within the limits of these few traits 
quite a world of aimless philistine life has thus been unveiled 
before your eyes, a world of factory life, and a world of new 
longings making an irruption into It, and finding support 
from the outside. You read all this in the little episode. You 
see with a striking distinctness the four main personages upon 
whom light has been focussed for a short moment. iVnd in 
the hazy outlines which you rather guess than see on the 
picture round the brightly lighted spot, you discover quite a 
world of complicated human relations, at the present moment 
and In times to come. Take away anything of the distinctness 
of the figures In the lighted spot, or anything of the haziness 
of the remainder — and the picture will be spoiled. 

Such are nearly all the stories of Tchehoff. Even when 
they cover some fifty pages they have the same character. 

Tchehoff wrote a couple of stories from peasant life. But 
peasants and village life are not his proper sphere. His true 
domain Is the world of the " Intellectuals " — the educated 
and the half-educated portion of Russian society — and these 
he knows In perfection. He shows their bankruptcy, their 
Inaptitude to solve the great historical problem of renovation 
which fell upon them, and the meanness and vulgarity of 
everyday life under which an immense number of them suc- 
cumb. Since the times of Gogol no writer In Russia has so 
wonderfully represented human meanness under Its varied 
aspects. And yet, what a difference between the two ! Gogol 
took mainly the outer meanness, which strikes the eye and 
often degenerates Into farce, and therefore In most cases 
brings a smile on your lips or makes you laugh. But laughter 
is always a step towards reconcllatlon. Tchehoff also makes 
you laugh In his earlier productions, but In proportion as he 
advances In age, and looks more seriously upon life, the 



CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS 313 

laughter disappears, and although a fine humour remains, 
you feel that he now deals with a kind of meanness and 
Philistinism which provokes, not smiles but suffering in the 
author. A '' Tchehoff sorrow " is as much characteristic of his 
writings as the deep furrow between the brows of his lively 
eyes is characteristic of his good-natured face. Moreover, the 
meanness which Tchehoff depicts is much deeper than the 
one which Gogol knew. Deeper conflicts are now going on in 
the depths of the modern educated men, of which Gogol 
knew nothing seventy years ago. The " sorrow " of Tchehoff 
is also that of a much more sensitive and a more refined 
nature than the " unseen tears " of Gogol's satire. 

Better than any Russian novelist, Tchehoff understands 
the fundamental vice of that mass of Russian " intellectuals,'* 
who very well see the dark sides of Russian life but have no 
force to join that small minority of younger people who dare 
to rebel against the evil. In this respect, only one more writer 
— and this one was a woman, Hvoschinskaya (" Krestovskiy- 
pseudonyme "), who can be placed by the side of Tchehoff. 
He knew, and more than knew — he felt with every nerve of 
his poetical mind — that, apart from a handful of stronger 
men and women, the true curse of the Russian ** intellectual " 
is the weakness of his will, the insufficient strength of his 
desires. Perhaps he felt it in himself. And when he was asked 
once (in 1894) in a letter — "What should a Russian desire at 
the present time? " he wrote in return: " Here is my reply: 
desire ! He needs most of all desire — force of character. We 
have enough of that whining shapelessness." 

This absence of strong desire and weakness of will he 
continually, over and over again, represented in his heroes. 
But this predilection was not a mere accident of tempera- 
ment and character. It was a direct product of the times he 
lived in. 

Tchehoff, we saw, was nineteen years old when he began 
to write in 1879. He thus belongs to the generation which 
had to live through, during their best years, the worst years 
which Russia has passed through in the second half of the 
nineteenth century. With the tragic death of Alexander II. 
and the advent to the throne of his son, Alexander III., a 
whole epoch — the epoch of progressive work and bright 



314 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

hopes had come to a final close. All the sublime efforts of that 
younger generation which had entered the political arena in 
the seventies, and had taken for its watchword the symbol: 
*' Be with the people I '' had ended in a crushing defeat — the 
victims moaning now in fortresses and in the snows of 
Siberia. More than that, all the great reforms, including the 
abolition of serfdom, which had been realised in the sixties 
by the Herzen, Turgueneff, and Tchernyshevskiy generation, 
began now to be treated as so many mistakes, by the reaction- 
ary elements which had now rallied round Alexander III. 
Never will a Westerner understand the depth of despair and 
the hopeless sadness which took hold of the intellectual por- 
tion of Russian society for the next ten or twelve years after 
that double defeat, when it came to the conclusion that it was 
incapable to break the inertia of the masses, or to move 
history so as to fill up the gap between its high ideals and 
the heartrending reality. In this respect " the eighties " were 
perhaps the gloomiest period that Russia lived through for 
the last hundred years. In the fifties the intellectuals had at 
least full hope in their forces ; now — they had lost even these 
hopes. It was during those very years that Tchehoff began to 
write; and, being a true poet, who feels and responds to the 
moods of the moment, he became the painter of that break- 
down — of that failure of the " intellectuals ** which hung as 
a nightmare above the civilised portion of Russian society. 
And again, being a great poet, he depicted that all-invading 
philistine meanness in such features that his picture will live. 
How superficial, in comparison, is the philistinism described 
by Zola. Perhaps, France even does not know that disease 
which was gnawing then at the very marrow of the bones 
of the Russian " intellectual." 

With all that, Tchehoff is by no means a pessimist In the 
proper sense of the word; if he had come to despair, he 
would have taken the bankruptcy of the " intellectuals " as 
a necessary fatality. A word, such as, for instance, " /?« de 
Steele,'^ would have been his solace. But Tchehoff could not 
find satisfaction in such words because he firmly believed that 
a better existence was possible — and would come. " From 
my childhood " — he wrote in an intimate letter — " I have 
believed in progress, because the difference between the time 



CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS 315 

when they used to flog me, and when they stopped to do so 
[in the sixties] was tremendous/' 

There are three dramas of Tchehoff — Ivdnoff, Uncle 
Vdnya {Uncle John), and The Cherry-Tree Garden, which 
fully illustrate how his faith in a better future grew in him as 
he advanced in age. Ivanoff, the hero of the first drama, is 
the personification of that failure of the " intellectual "^ of 
which I just spoke. Once upon a time he had had his high 
ideals and he still speaks of them, and this is why Sasha, a 
girl, full of the better inspirations — one of those fine intellec- 
tual types in the representation of which Tchehoff appears 
as a true heir of Turgueneff — falls in love with him. But 
Ivanoff knows himself that he is played out; that the girl 
loves in him what he is no more; that the sacred fire is with 
him a mere reminiscence of the better years, irretrievably 
past ; and while the drama attains its culminating point, just 
when his marriage with Sasha is going to be celebrated, 
Ivanoff shoots himself. Pessimism is triumphant. 

Uncle Vdnya ends also in the most depressing way; but 
there is some faint hope in it. The drama reveals an even still 
more complete breakdown of the educated " intellectual,*' and 
especially of the main representative of that class — the pro- 
fessor, the little god of the family, for whom all others have 
been sacrificing themselves, but who all his life has only 
written beautiful words about the sacred problems of art, 
while all his life he remained the most perfect egotist. But 
the end of this drama is different. The girl, Sonya, who is the 
counterpart of Sasha, and has been one of those who sacri- 
ficed themselves for the professor, remains more or less in 
the background of the drama, until, at its very end she comes 
forward in a halo of endless love. She is neglected by the 
man whom she loves. This man — an enthusiast — prefers, 
however, a beautiful woman (the second wife of the pro- 
fessor) to Sonya, who is only one of those workers who bring 
life into the darkness of Russian village life, by helping the 
dark mass to pull through the hardships of their lives. 

The drama ends in a heart-rending musical accord of devo- 
tion and self-sacrifice on behalf of Sonya and her uncle. " It 
cannot be helped " — Sonya says — "we must live ! Uncle John, 
we shall live. We shall live through a long succession of days, 



3i6 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

and of long nights; we shall patiently bear the sufferings 
which fate will send upon us ; we shall work for the others — 
now, and later on, In old age, knowing no rest; and when our 
hour shall have come, we shall die without murmur, and 
there, beyond the grave * * * we shall rest! '* 

There Is, after all, a redeeming feature In that despair. 
There remains the faith of Sonya in her capacity to work, 
her readiness to face the work, even without personal 
happiness. 

But In proportion as Russian life becomes less gloomy; 
In proportion as hopes of a better future for our country 
begin to bud once more In the youthful beginnings of a move- 
ment amongst the working classes In the Industrial centres, 
to the call of which the educated youth answer Immediately ; 
in proportion as the " Intellectuals " revive again, ready to 
sacrifice themselves In order to conquer freedom for the 
grand whole — the Russian people — ^Tchehoff also begins to 
look into the future with hope and optimism. The Cherry- 
Tree Garden was his last swan-song, and the last words of 
this drama sound a note full of hope In a better future. The 
cherry-tree garden of a noble landlord, which used to be a 
true fairy garden when the trees were In full bloom, and 
nightingales sang In their thickets, has been pitilessly cut 
down by the money-making middle class man. No blossom, 
no nightingales — only dollars Instead. But Tchehoff looks 
further Into the future : he sees the place again In new hands, 
and a new garden Is going to grow Instead of the old one — 
a garden where all will find a new happiness In new surround- 
ings. Those whose whole life was for themselves alone 
could never grow such a garden ; but some day soon this will 
be done by beings like Anya, the heroine, and her friend, 
" the perpetual student '' . . . 

The influence of Tchehoff, as Tolstoy has remarked, will 
last, and will not be limited to Russia only. He has given 
such a prominence to the short story and Its ways of dealing 
with human life that he has thus become a reformer of our 
literary forms. In Russia he has already a number of imi- 
tators who look upon him as upon the head of a school ; but — 
will they have also the same Inimitable poetical feeling, the 
same charming Intimacy In the way of telling the stories, that 



CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS 317 

special form of love of nature, and above all, the beauty of 
Tchehoft's smile amidst his tears? — all qualities inseparable 
from his personality. 

As to his dramas, they are favourites on the Russian stage, 
both in the capitals and In the provinces. They are admirable 
for the stage and produce a deep effect; and when they are 
played by such a superior cast as that of the Artistic Theatre 
at Moscow — as the Cherry-Tree Garden was played lately — 
they become dramatic events. 

In Russia Tchehoff Is now perhaps the most popular of 
the younger wTlters. Speaking of the living novelists only, 
he is placed Immediately after Tolstoy, and his w^orks are 
read Immensely. Separate volumes of his stories, published 
under different titles — In Tziilight, Sad People and so on 
— ran each through ten to fourteen editions, while full 
editions of Tchehoff's Works m ten and fourteen volumes, 
sold In fabulous numbers: of the latter, which was given as 
a supplement to a weekly, more than 200,000 copies were 
circulated In one single year. 

In Germany Tchehoff has produced a deep Impression; 
his best stories have been translated more than once, so that 
one of the leading Berlin critics exclaimed lately : "Tschechoff, 
Tschechoff, und kein Ende ! " (Tchehoff, Tchehoff, and no 
end.) In Italy he begins to be widely read. And yet It Is 
only his stories which are known beyond Russia. His dramas 
seem to be too " Russian," and they hardly can deeply move 
audiences outside the borders of Russia, where such dramas 
of Inner contradiction are not a characteristic feature of the 
moment. 

If there Is any logic In the evolution of societies, such a 
writer as Tchehoff had to appear before literature could take 
a new direction and produce the new types which already are 
budding in life. At any rate, an Impressive parting word had 
to be pronounced, and this is what Tchehoff has done. 



3i8 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

While this book was being prepared for print a work of 
great value for all the English-speaking lovers of Russian 
literature appeared In America. I mean the Anthology of 
Russian Literature from the earliest Period to the present 
Time, by Leo Wiener, assistant professor of Slavic languages 
at Harvard University, published In two stately volumes by 
Messrs. Putnam's Sons at New York. The first volume (400 
pages) contains a rich selection from the earliest documents 
of Russian literature — the annals, the epic songs, the lyric 
folk-songs, etc., as also from the writers of the seventeenth 
and the eighteenth centuries. It contains, moreover, a general 
short sketch of the literature of the period and a mention is 
made of all the English translations from the early Russian 
literature. The second volume (500 pages) contains ab- 
stracts, with short Introductory notes and a full bibliography, 
from all the chief authors of the nineteenth century, begin- 
ning with Karamzin and ending with Tchehoff, Gorkiy, and 
Merezhkovskly. All this has been done with full knowledge 
of Russian literature and of every author; the choice of char- 
acteristic abstracts hardly could be better, and the many 
translations which Mr. Wiener himself has made are very 
good. In this volume, too, all the English translations of 
Russian authors are mentioned, and we must hope that their 
number will now rapidly Increase. Very many of the Russian 
authors have hardly been translated at all, and In such cases 
there Is nothing else left but to advise the reader to peruse 
French or German translations. Both are much more nu- 
merous than the English, a considerable number of the 
German translations being embodied in the cheap editions of 
Reklam. 

A work concerning Malo-Russlan (Little- Russian) litera- 
ture, on lines similar to those followed by Mr. Wiener, has 
appeared lately under the title, Vik; the Century, a Col- 
lection of Malo-Russian Poetry and Prose published from 
I J 08 to i8g8, 3 vols. (Kiev, Peter Barski) ; (analysed In 
Athenaum, January 10, 1903.) 

Of general works which may be helpful to the student 
of Russian literature I shall name Ralston's Early Russian 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 319 

History, Softgs of the Russian People, and Russian Folk 
Tales (1872-1874), as also his translation of Afanasleff's 
Legends; Rambaud's La Russie epique (1876) and his 
excellent History of Russia (Engl, trans.) ; Le roman russe, 
by Vogue; Impressions of Russia, by George Brandes (trans- 
lated by Eastman; Boston, 1889), ^"^ his Moderne Geister, 
which contains an admirable chapter on Turgueneff. 

Of general works In Russian, the following may be named : 
History of Russian Literature in Biographies and Sketches, 
by P. Polevoy, 2 vols., Illustrated (1883; new edition, 
enlarged, In 1903) ; and History of the New Russian Litera- 
ture from 1848 to i8g8, by A. Skabltchevskly, 4th ed., 1900, 
with 52 portraits. Both are reliable, well written, and not 
bulky works — the former being rather popular In character, 
while the second Is a critical work which goes into the 
analysis of every writer. The recently published Gallery of 
Russian Writers, edited by I. Ignatoff (Moscow, 1901), 
contains over 250 good portraits of Russian authors, accom- 
panied by one page notices, quite well written, of their work. 
A very exhaustive work is History of the Russian Literature 
by A. Pypin, In 4 vols., (1889), beginning with the earliest 
times and ending with Pushkin, Lermontoff, Gogol, and 
Koltsoff. The same author has written a History of Russian 
Ethnography, also In 4 vols. Among works dealing with por- 
tions only of the Russian literature the following may be 
mentioned: Tchernyshevskly's Critical Articles, St. Peters- 
burg, 1893 ; Annenkoff's Pushkin and His Time; O. Miller's 
Russian Writers after Gogol; Merezhkovskly's books on 
Pushkin and another on Tolstoy; and Arsenleff's Critical 
Studies of Russian Literature, 2 vols., 1888 (mentioned in 
the text) ; and above all, of course, the collections of Works 
of our critics: Byelmskly (12 vols.) ; Dobroluboff (4 vols.), 
Pisareff (6 vols.), and Mihailovskly (6 vols.), completed 
by his Literary Reminiscences, 

A work of very great value, which Is still in progress, is 
the Biographic Dictionary of Russian Writers, published and 
nearly entirely written by S. Vengueroff, who Is also the 
editor of new, scientifically prepared editions of the complete 
works of several authors (Byelinskiy Is now published). 
Excellent biographies and critical sketches of all Russian 



320 RUSSIAN LITERATURE 

writers will be found In the Russian Encyclopaedia Dictionary 
of Brockhaus-Efron. The first two volumes of this Dictionary 
(they will be completed In an Appendix) were brought out 
as a translation of the Lexikon of Brockhaus; but the direc- 
tion was taken over In good time by a group of Russian men 
of science, Including Mendeleeff, Wolelkoff, V. Solovioff, etc., 
who have made of the 82 volumes of this Dictionary, 
completed In 1904 (at 6 sh. the volume) — one of the best 
encyclopaedias In Europe. Suffice It to say that all articles 
on chemistry and chemical technics have been either written 
or carefully revised by Mendeleeff. 

Complete editions of the works of most of the Russian 
writers have lately been published, some of them by the editor 
Marks, in connection with his weekly Illustrated paper, at 
astoundlngly low prices, which can only be explained by a 
circulation which exceeds 200,000 copies every year. The 
work of Gogol, Turgueneff, Gontcharoff, Ostrovskiy, Bo- 
borykin, Tchehoff, and some minor writers, like Danilevskiy 
and Lyeskoff, are in this case. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abolition of serfdom committees, 119 
Absolutism, historical necessity of, 

272 
^Esthetics, philosophical, 287 
theories of, 290 
of the leisured class, 306 
Agricultural Academy of Moscow, 

302 
Agricultural labourers in Western 

Europe, hardships of, 267 
Agricultural population of Russia, 

immense, 244 
Agricultural village, life in an, 245 
"Akib, the Assyrian King," 8 
AksakofF, Ivan, 176 
Konstantin, 176 

Serghei Timofeevitch, prose writer, 
176; a Slavophile, 268, 269, 301 
Alexander the Great, legends of, 8 
Alexander I., educated by La Harpe, 
34; attempts to give Russia a 
constitution, 34; grants one to 
Poland and Finland, 34; influ- 
ence of German mystics on, 34; 
surrenders to the reactionists, 
34; influence of Madame Krii- 
dener on, 34 
Alexei the priest's son, 8 
American features of a new life, 302 
American squatters, 119, 227 
Anarchism, no-government principles 
of, 146 
modern, founded by Mikhail 
Bakunin, 276 
Annals, rich Russian collection of, 14 
Antanovitch, Grand Duke Ivan, im- 



prisoned in fortress of Schiissel- 
berg, 29 
Antique Greek world, study of the, 

Anti-Semitic comedy, reception of, in 

St. Petersburg, 264 
Apocryphal gospels, wide circulation 

of, in Russia, 17 
Archaeological details, abuse of, 306 
Arakcheeff, General, rules Russia 

during last ten years of reign of 

Alexander I., 34 
Arctic exploration, LomonosoflF's 

memoir on, 25 
Aristocratic girl, interesting types of 

the, 302 
Armenian language, 4 
Arsenal of punishments, 264 
ArseniefF, K., critic, 172, 295 

K. K., writer of satires, 282 
Art and its impulses, 160 
Art, counterfeits of, 298 
Art criticism, canons in, 293 
foundations of new, 287 
in Russia, 287 
"Art for Art's sake," 295, 297, 298 

poets of, 183-185 
Art in the service of mankind, 296 
Art, latest works of, 145-148 
the main principles of, 289 
utilitarian views upon, 295 
Artels (co-operative organisations), 

230 
Asceticism preached in Russia, 17 
Audubon, John James, mentioned, 

"^11 



323 



3^ 

Auerbach, Berthold, mentioned, 91 

Autocracy, evils of, 63 

Awakum, Nonconformist priest, 

memoirs of, 19-21; quotation 

from, 20; exiled to Siberia, 20; 

taken to the Amur, 20; burned 

at the stake, 20 



Russian revolu 



Bakunin, Mikhail, 

tionist, 276 
Balaklava disaster, Tolstoy's poems 

on, 113 
Balkan peninsula, invasion of, by 

Turks, 15 
Balzac, Honore de, mentioned, 58, 

86,91 
Barantsevitch, novelist, 304 
Baratinskiy, romantic Russian poet, 

62 
Barbier, Henri Auguste, mentioned, 

40, 173, 186 
Bards of Northern and Little Rus- 
sia, 7 
Bards, special, 8 
Baskaks, visits of, to Russia, 16 
Bayan, Russian bard, 13 
Beautiful, realistic definition of the, 

290 
the w^orship of the, 306 
Beauty and Truth, idealistic point of 

view of, 289 
Belles-lettres, Academy of, founded 

by Catherine IL, 26 
Beranger, Pierre Jean de, mentioned, 

3,186 
chansonettes of, 4 
BestuzhefF, Alexander, prose writer, 

. ^3 . 

Bible, Russian translation of, 5 
the first Russian, 19 
why it has not yet been super- 
seded, 298 
Biblical Old Slavonian, little use of, 

22 
Bibliographical notes, 318-320 



INDEX 

Bismarck, Otto Eduard Leopold, 

mentioned, 124 
" Black people" and "white people," 

14 
Black Sea, Russia takes firm hold of, 

27 
Blood-vengeance of Scandinavian 

heroes, 10 
Boborykin, novelist, sketch of, 307 
Bodenstedt, friend and German trans- 
lator of Lermontoff's poems, 52, 

53,56 
Bogdanovitch, poet, 27, 28 
Books, censorship on, in Russia, 264 
Borodin, music of, 14 
Brandes, George, his study of Tur- 

gueneff, 91, 94 
Bronte, Charlotte, mentioned, 179 
Browning, Robert, mentioned, 40, 

186 
Buckle, Henry Thomas, mentioned, 

265 
Bulgaria falls under the rule of the 

Osmanlis, 15 
Bulgarian language, 4 
Bureaucratic centralisation, 267 
Burial songs of peasant women, 7 
ByeiaefF, historian, 269 
Byelinskiy, the greatest critic of his 

time, 163, 288 ; ancestry and 

sketch of his writings, 288-290; 

mentioned, 178, 224, 267, 269, 

272, 276, 287 n., 288, 289, 293, 

296, 298 
Byliny, early Russian explorers of, 9 

epic songs of, 8 
Byron, Lord George Gordon, men- 

rioned, 33, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46, 

47, 51, 61, 63, 186, 187, 288 
Byronism, mantle of, 48 

Pushkin's, 45 
Byronists, Don Juanesque features 

of the, 162 
Byzantine Church, teachings of, 17 
Byzantine gnosticism, 5 



INDEX 



Byzantine habits of Moscow, 68 
Byzantine historians, 15 
Byzantine ideals of the Russian 
Church, 16 

CapitaHsm, powers of, 268 
Cat-o'-nine-tails, punishment of the, 

164 

Catherine II., hterature in the early 
part of her reign, 26; full of 
progressive ideas, 26; her inter- 
course with French philoso- 
phers, 26; composes her remark- 
able Instruction to the deputies, 
26; writes several comedies, 26; 
edits a monthly review, 26; 
writes two satirical comedies 
and a comic opera, 194 

Caucasians, the most beautiful peo- 
ple of Europe, 52 

Caucasus "society," descriptions of, 

59 

Caucasus, the, one of the most beau- 
tiful regions on earth, 52 

Censorship of literature under 
Nicholas I., 36 

Censorship, rigorous Russian, 94, 
263 

Central Russia, invaded by Cos- 
sacks, 18 
spoken language of, 6 

Cervantes, Miguel de, good-natured 
laughter of, 4 

Chansonnettes, playful, 4 

Charles XII., of Sweden, ruler of 
Little Russia, defeated at Pol- 
tava, 36 

Christ, the teachings of, 140 

Christian brotherhoods, early, 17 

Christian ethics, main points of the, 

142-145 
Christian humility, 143 

mask of, 83 
Christian literature in Russia, 17 
Christian mysricism, 28 



325 

Russian 



Christian nationality of 

Church, 16 
Christian teaching, interpretation of, 

■38 

moral aspects of, 140 

Christianity, development of, 17 
rationalistic interpretation of, 139; 

dogmatic elements of, 140 
reformed, antagonism to, 17 
spread of, in Russia, 29 

Christmas Eve, Russian village life 
on, 69 

Church and State, attitude of nega- 
tion towards, 145 

Church Christianity, 140 n. 

Church, lower clergy of the, imposi- 
tions on, 19 

Church, Russian, throws off the 
Mongol yoke, 16 

Churches, hatred of, towards each 
other, 138 

Cicero, powerful oratory of, 24 

Circassians, struggle of, against the 
Russians, 56, 57 

Circles, the, important part played 
by the, in the intellectual devel- 
opment of Russia, 266 

Citizen, the duties of a, 174 

Civilisation based on Capitalism and 
State, 131 

Classicism in Russia, 43 

Classics, Russian, circulation of, 6 

Codes of the Empire and the Com- 
mon Law, 269 

Colonisation, inner, of Russia, 230 

Commercialism, modem, the prey of, 

245 
Common Law Courts, peasants*, 

222 
Communal landownership, 267 
Communal principles in Russian 

life, 32 _ 
Communal spirit of Russian popular 

life, 10 
Communism, teachings of free, 144 



326 INDEX 

Constantine, Grand Duke, explora- 
tion of Russia, 225, 230 

Constantine, proclaimed emperor, 
35; abdicates, 35 

Constantinople annalists and histo- 
rians, 15 

Contemporary novelists, 300-317 

Contemporary, The, z monthly re- 
view, Tolstoy contributes to, 
no, 112; its fight for peasant 
freedom, 114; NekrasofF edits 
and contributes to, 171; Ivan 
PanaefF, co-editor, 178; Tcher- 
nyshevskiy contributes to, 279; 
suppressed, 283 

Coolidge, Professor, of Cambridge, 
Mass., his review articles on 
Russian writers, 39 

Co-operative organisations, 230 

Copernicus, mentioned, 25 

Cornwall, Barry, mentioned, 187 

Corps of Pages, 30 

Cossacks, invade Central Russia, 10 
their ways of conducting war, 72 

County councils, 231 

Criticism, literary, 285, 286 

Critics, works of, early read, 287 

Czech language, 4 

Czechs, old literature of, 4 

Dal, v., ethnographer and prose 

writer, birth and ancestry, 177; 

his main work a dictionary of 

the Russian language, 178 
Danilevskiy, historical novelist, 227 
Dante, Alighieri, mentioned, 61, 187 
Dargomyzhsky, operas of, 13 
Darwin, Charles Robert, mentioned, 

265 
Darwinism, exposition of, 293 

new ideas of, no 
"Decadent" would-be poets, 296 
Decembrists, the, 33-36; Nicholas I. 

hangs five and exiles others to 

Siberia, 35 



Degeneracy not the sole feature of 
modern society, 86 

Delwig, Russian poet, personal 
friend of Pushkin, 62 

Demetrius, the pretender, takes pos- 
session of throne at Moscow, 18 

Demon of habitual drunkenness, 238 

Derzhavin, poet laureate to Cather- 
ine II., 26; his poetry of Nature, 
27; Ode to Go J, 27; The Water- 

fall, 27 
Dickens, Charles, references to, 91, 

187; roUicking humour of, 4 
Discussions, unnatural theoretical, 

169 
"Dissent," varieties of, 268 
"Disturbed Years," traces of, in 

popular songs, 18 
DobrolubofF, literary critic, ancestry 

and sketch of, 291 
DobrolubofF, ultra-democratic writer, 

114; mentioned, 290, 293, 297 
Dobrynia, the dragon-killer, 9 
Dolgorukiy, Prince, political writer, 

Dolgushin groups, trial of, 135 
Don, blue waters of the, 1 1 
Dover, England, cliffs of, 52 
Dostoyevskiy, Russian author, sketch 
of his life and works, 163-170; 
writes Poor People when twenty- 
four, 163 ; congratulated by 
NekrasofF and Grigorovitch, 
163; introduced to Byelinskiy, 
the critic, 163; his sad life, 
163; condemned to death, 163; 
pardoned, 164; death of, 164; 
description of his novels, 164- 

170 

Drama in Russia, its origin, 191; 
Peter I. opened a theatre in 
Moscow, 192; theatres become 
a permanent institution, 192 

Dramatic art in Russia, development 
ofy77 



Drunkenness, Russian habits of, 238 

the terrible disease of, 242 
Druzhinin, critic, 295 

Eastern heroes, exploits of, 9 
Eastern legends, Russian versions 

of, 8 
Eastern Russia, spoken language of, 6 
Eastern traditions, spread of, in 

Russia, 10 
Educated man in Russia, despair of 

the, 96 
Educated women, new generation 

of, 304 
Eighteenth century philosophers, 4 
Eliot, George, mentioned, 179 
Elpatievskiy, S., folk-novelist, 249 
Elsler, Fanny, ballet dancer, appears 

at the Imperial Theatre, Mos- 
cow, 200 
Emancipated woman, the, 304 
Emancipation committees, 280 
Epic narrative, quiet recitative of, 8 
Epic poetry, freshness and vigorous 

youthfulness of the early, 16 
Epic songs, collecting of, 8; heroes 

of, 8 
of wandering bards, 16 
proscribed by the Russian Church, 

Epicureanism, exclusive conditions 

of, 134 
Equality and Liberty, appeals to, 93 
Equality of all men, recognition of, 

^145 
Ergolskaya, T. A., a woman relative 

of Tolstoy's, III 
Ethnographical research in Russia, 

230-232 
Euler, Leonhard, mathematician, 24 
European society, conventional life 

of, 45 
Everyday talk, forms of familiar, 
introduced into Russian litera- 
ture, 31 



INDEX 327 

Everyday life, 259 

Evil, physical force in resisting. 

Exact sciences, interest of Peter I. 
in, 22 

Factory girls, life of, 135 

Faust, Dr., 5 

Federal principles in Russia, 32, 268 

Finland, constitution granted to, by 
Alexander I., 34 

Folk-literature, of European na- 
tions, 7 
of Russia, early, 7 

Folk-lore, leading features of Rus- 
sian, 16 

Folk-novelists, 221-260 
realistic school of, 232 
their position in Russian literature, 
221 

Fonvizin. See Wizin, Von 

Fourier, Francois, mentioned, 224, 
272 

Fourierism, 281 

Fourierists, 163 

Franklin, Benjamin, mentioned, 30 

Freemasons in Russia, their effort 
for spreading moral education 
among the people, 28; their deep 
influence on Russia, 29; Alex- 
ander I. grants them more free- 
dom, 29 

Free thought stifled in Russia under 
Nicholas L, 35 

French philosophers, Catherine II. *s 
intercourse with, 26 

French Revolution of 1830, 271; of 
1848, 272 

French school of acting popular in 
Moscow, 201 

French Socialists, 272 

Froebel, reforms of, I2i 

From Whence and Honv Came to be 
the Land of Russia, early at- 
tempt at writing history, 15 



328 

Garshin, war novelist, 124 
Georgia, smiling valleys of, 53 
Georgian language, 4 
Gerbel, N., poetical translator, 186 
German aesthetical writers, meta- 
physics of, 295 
German metaphysics, 4 
German philosophy, idealistic, 289 
Glinka, music of, 13 
God of the Thunders, 9 
God, the essence of life, 141 
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, refer- 
ences to, 4, 5, 40, 41, 45, 62, 172, 
185,187,288,293 
Gogol, Nicolai Vasilievitch, sketch of 
his life and works, 67-86; birth 
and ancestry of, 67; humour 
and wit of, 68; his tales of the 
upper classes, 69; the plot of his 
novel. Tar as Bulba, 70-72; his 
prose-comedy The Inspector- 
General described, 73-76; ex- 
tracts from, 76-81; hostile criti- 
cism on The Inspector-General^ 
78; Dead Souls his main work, 
79; extracts from, 79-81; he 
suffers from a nervous disease, 
83; falls under the influence 
of the "pietists," 83; death of, 
84; his great influence on the 
minds of Russians, 84; fore- 
runner of the literary movement 
against serfdom, 84; literary in- 
fluence of, 85; a great artist, 85; 
first to introduce the social ele- 
ment into Russian liteiature, 85; 
references to, 6, 27, 58, 89, 96, 
163, 176, 177, 201, 282, 283, 288, 

301.319 
GoncharoflF, talented Russian writer, 
sketch of his life and works, 151- 
162; his attitude of impartiality 
to his heroes, 152; profusion of 
details in his novels, 152; de- 
scription of his novel Ohlomofj^ 



INDEX 



152-161; his youth and char- 
acter, 154; extracts from Ohlo- 
moff, 154-159; description of 
The Precipice, 1 61, 1 62; men- 
tioned, 6, 120, 169, 223, 224, 
228 

Gorkiy, Maxim, author and dra- 
matic writer, 217, 249; his 
childhood, 250; his reputation 
in America and Western Eu- 
rope, 250; sketch of the char- 
acters in his novels, 250-260; 
extracts from The Reader, 257- 
259 

Gospels, interpretation of, heresy, 17 

Grammar of the Russian language, 
foundation of, 24 

Great Russia, description of, 68 

Great-Russian language, 6 

Greco-Latin Academy of KiefF, 19 

Greco-Slavonian Academy founded, 
22 

Greek Church, wide-spread separa- 
tion of the people from the, 19 

Greek models, inspiration of, 15 

Greek Orthodox Church, 137, 138, 
267 

Gregory, an adapter of English 
plays, 191 

GriboyedofF, comedy writer, bom in 
Moscow, 196; enters the diplo- 
matic service, 196; sent to Te- 
heran, 196; arrested at Tiflis, 
197; set free, 197; in the Persian 
war, 197; killed in Teheran, 198 

Grigorieff, A., critic, 295 

Grigorovitch, peasant novels of, 85, 
229 

Grimm's collecdon of fairy tales, 7 

Hamlet and Don Quixote, 105 
Hamletism in Russian life, 97, 108 
Hannibal oath, the, 271 
Happiness, personal, where found, 
137 «• 



Harte, Bret, mentioned, 250 
Hatzfeld, Countess of, her relations 

to Lassalle, 93 
Heat, mechanical theory of, 25 
Heine, Heinrich, references to, 3, 4, 

44, 186, 187, 293 
Hellenic love and poetic compre- 
hension of Nature, 306 
Hemnitzer, a writer of fables, 28 
Herder, Johann Gottfried, men- 
tioned, 33 
Heredity, physiological, 222 
Herzen, Alexander, birth and ances- 
try, 271; enters Moscow Univer- 
sity, 271; exiled to the Urals, 272; 
returns to Moscow, 272; exiled 
to Novgorod, 272; expelled from 
France, 273; naturalised in 
Switzerland, 273; starts his 
Polar Star in London, 273; starts 
The Belly and becomes a real 
power in Russia, 274; supports 
the Poles, 274; his death, 275; 
mentioned, 267, 269, 289, 314 
High-life in St. Petersburg, 48 
Highly educated, inner drama of the, 

299 
Hilferding, A., 8 
Historians, General Staff, 124 
Historical dramas, 214, 215 
Historical novels, difficulties in writ- 
ings 123 
Holberg, Danish comedy writer, 

"Jean de France^ 27 
Holiday cycle of songs, 7 
Holy Alliance between Germany, 

Austria, and Russia, 34 
Holy Books, printing of the, 19 
scholastic discussions on, 68 
Homer, epics of, 1 1 
Homyakoff (Slavophile), extract 

from speech on Art, 296, 297 
Hood, Thomas, mentioned, 186 
Hugo, Victor, mentioned, 40, 173, 
186, 215, 288 



INDEX 329 

Human drama, development of the 
inner, 92 

Human nature, failures of, in our 
present civilisation, 309 

Humanitarian feeling in a family, 310 

Husband and wife, separation be- 
tween, debated in Russia, 127 

Huxley, Thomas Henry, mentioned, 

24 
Huyghens, Constantijn, mentioned, 

Hvoschinskaya, N. D., woman prose 
writer, 179; sketch of her writ- 
ings, I 79-1 8 I 



Ibsen, Henrik, mentioned, 259 

Icelandic sagas, 8 

Idea and form in poetry, corre- 
spondence between, 173 

Idealism, 1 16 
mask of, 128 
the neglect of, 257 

Idealistic realism, forms of, 249 

Ideas, means of exchanging, by the 
circles, 266 

Ilyia of Murom, 8 

Imperial Theatre, St. Petersburg, 
estabhshed, 193 

Individual, rights of the, 305 

Indo-European languages, 4 

Industrialism, era of, 267 

Intellectual life in Russia, from 1848 
to 1876, 97 

Intellectual unity of the Russian 
nation, 6 

Intellectuals, Russian, 253 
educated, 263 
type of, 231 

International Working Men's Asso- 
ciation, 276 

IvanofF, Professor, 287 n. 

Jacobinism, Governmental, 114 
James, Richard, his songs relating to 
dark period of serfdom, 18 



330 

Jersey, Norman law in, 269 

John the Terrible, letters of, to 

Prince Kurbskiy, 18; rule of, in 

Russia, 18 
Journalism, serious, the founder of, 

in Russia, 287 
Judaic Christianity, life-depressing 

influences of, 306 

"Kalevala" of the Finns, 1 1 
Kaliki, wandering singers, 7 
Kantemir, writer of satires, 22; 

ambassador to London, 22 n. 
Kapnist, writer of satires, 28 
Karamzin, historian, poet, and 
novelist. The History of the 
Russian State ^ 32; a poet of the 
virtues of monarchy, 32; his 
history a work of art, 32; 
Letters of a Russian Traveller 
Abroad^ T^y, his sentimental ro- 
manticism, 33 ; his Poor Liza, 33 ; 
spirited protest against serfdom, 

33 
Kavelin, philosopher and writer on 

law, 50 
KiefF, Annals of, 14, 15 

disappears from history for two 

centuries, 15 
Knights of industry and plutocracy, 

modem, 284 
Knyazhnin, translator of tragedies, 

193 
KokorefF, I. T., folk-novelist, 228 
Koltsoff, a poet from the people, 182 
Korolenko, novelist, sketch of, 302 
Korsakoff, Rimsky, music of, 14 
KostomarofF, historian, 268 
Kotoshikhin, historian, runs away 

from Moscow to Sweden, 21; 

writes a history of Russia, 21; 

advocates wide reforms, 21; his 

manuscripts discovered at Up- 

sala, 21 
Kozloff, Russian poet, 61 



INDEX 



Krestovskiy, Vsevolod, a woman 
writer of detective stories, 179 

Kriidener, Madame, influence of, 
on Alexander I., 34 

KryloflP, V. A., playwright and fable 
writer, 60; his translations from 
Lafontaine, 60; his unique posi- 
tion in Russian literature, 61; 
menrioned, 177, 194, 217 

Kryzhanitch, South Slavonian writer, 
called to Moscow, 2i ; revises the 
Holy Books, 21; preaches re- 
form, 21; exiled to Siberia and 
dies, 21 

Kiirbskiy, Prince, letters to, from 
John the Terrible, 18 

Labour movement in Russia, 265 
Labzin, a Christian mystic, writes 
against corruption and is exiled, 
29 
La Harpe, French republican, edu- 
cates Alexander L, 34 
Lake Onega, folk-literature at, 7 
Land, municipalisation of, 146 

the communal ownership of, 246 
Languages of Western Europe, 3 
Lassalle, Ferdinand, mentioned, 93 
Latin Church prevented from ex- 
tending its influence over Rus- 
sia, 16 
"Latinism,'* 19 

Lavrofi^, Peter, political writer, 276; 
a preacher of activity among the 
people, 277 
Law of the Russian State and people, 

268 
Lay of Igor's Raid, The, a twelfth 

century poem, 11 
LazhechnikofF, historical novelist, 64 
Laziness, the poetry of, 155 
Legends of the saints widely read, 

Leroux, Pierre, mentioned, 224, 272 
LermontofF, Mikhail Yurievitch, 



INDEX 



sketch of his life and works, 
50-59 ; writes verses and poems 
when a boy, 50; enters Moscow 
University, 51 ; goes to a military 
school in St. Petersburg, 51; 
writes a popular poem on 
Liberty and is exiled to Siberia, 
52; transferred to the Caucasus, 
52; plot of The Demon, 54; de- 
scription of Mytsyri, 54; his 
demonism or pessimism, 55; a 
"humanist," 56; his love for 
Russia, 56; his dislike of war, 
57; death of, 57; The Captain s 
Daughter described, 57, 58; plot 
of his novel. The Hero of Our 
Own Time, 58, 59; references 
to, 4, 61, 63, 68, 84, 89, 112, 
172, 173, 176,295,319 

LevitofF, folk-novelist, 240; his sad 
life, 240-242 

Liberty, culminating point in struggle 
for, 304 

Life superior to Art, 290 

Life, the kaleidoscope of, 307 
the organisation of, 140 
the simpHfication of, 144 

Literary criticism, 285-299 

Literary language of Russia, 6 

Literary technique, 227 

Literature, a new vein in, 308; of 
the Czechs, 4; of the Poles, 4; 
of the great Slavonian family, 4; 
of the Great-Russians, 4; of the 
Little-Russians, 6; of the White- 
Russians, 6; treasures of thir- 
teenth century Russian, 15; a 
new era for, 26; modem Russian 
created, 43; Pushkin frees it 
from enslaving ties, 44; realism 
of Russian, 46; introduction of 
the social element into, 85; true 
founders of Russian literature, 
176; position of folk-novelists 
in Russian literature, 221; a 



the duty 



new school of, 233; 
of, 257 

Lithuanian language, 4 

Little-Russia, description of, 67, 68 

LomonosofF, historian, studies in 
Moscow, 23; and at KiefF, 23; 
sent to Germany and studied 
under Wolff, 23; returns to 
Russia, 23; writes a work on 
Arctic exploration, 25 

Longfellow, William Wadsworth, 
references to, 3, 4, 186; his 
Hiawatha mentioned, 4 

Love, discussion on, 127 

Mal-administration in Russia, 274 
Malo-Russian (Little-Russian) litera- 

^ ture,3i8 
Mamin, novelist, 304 
Mankind, repulsive types of, 168 
Markovitch, Mme. Marie, folk- 
novelist, 226 
Marriage and separation, questions 

of, 281 
Marriage, accusation against, 147 

opinions upon, 127 
Marriages, complicated ceremony 

of, 7 
Matchtett, novelist, 304 
Maupassant, Guy de, mentioned, 

^ 250, 308 
Maykoff, Apollon, poet of pure art 

for art's sake, 184 
Maykoff, Valerian, critic, 224, 290 
Mazepa, hetman, joins Charles XIL 

against Peter L, 36; flees to 

Turkey, 36 
Mazzini, Joseph, mentioned, 93 
Mediaeval literature of Russia, the, 

15-19 
Mediaeval Russia, 32 
Melshin, L., folk-novelist, 249 
Merimee, Prosper, mentioned, 39 
Merzhkovskiy, Dmitiy, poet and 

novelist, sketch of, 305 



33'^ 

Metaphysics, fogs of German, 268 
Mey, L., poet and dramatist, 186 
Mihailoskiy, leading Russian critic, 

294 

Mihailovskiy, gifted Russian critic, 
131; extracts from his writings, 
132 

Mikhail (the first Romanoff) intro- 
duces serfdom, 18 

Mikhailoff, Mikhail, translator of 
poems, 186 

MinayefF, poet, 174 

MinayefF, D., writer of satirical 
verses, 187 

Ministerial circulars, system of, 264 

Ministry of the Interior, Russian, 
censorship of books and news- 
papers by the, 263, 264 

Mir-eaters, 248 

Misgovernment, evils of, 144 

Modern civilized life, analysis of, 
284 

Moltke, Hellmuth Karl Bernhard, 
mentioned, 124 

Monarchy, the virtues of, 32 

Monasteries, learning concentrated 
in, 17 

Money-making middle class men, 

Mongol invasion of Russia, 15 
Mongol Khans help to build up 

Moscow, 1 6 
Mongols, tales from the, 7 
Montesquieu, Baron de la Brede, 

mentioned, 26 
Moore, Thomas, mentioned, 33, 187 
Moral foundations of Hfe, 129 
Moral philosophy, construction of a, 

145 
Moral teachings of the prophets of 

mankind, 140 
Morality, current rules of, 167 
Moravian language, 4, 5 
Morbid literature, 168 
Mordovtseff, novelist, 304 



INDEX 



Moscow, built up by aid of Mongol 
Khans, 16 
conflagration of, in 1812, II 
first capital of Russia, 14 n. 
serfdom introduced into, 16 
becomes a centre for Church and 

State, 16 
the heir to Constantinople, 16 
Poles capture, 18 
first printing office established in, 

revision of the Holy Books under- 
taken at, 19 
the slums of, 135 
Western habits of life introduced 
into, 191 
Moscow Church, criticism of digni- 
taries of, 17 
obtains a formidable power in 
Russia, 19 
"Moscow Fifty," trial of, 135, 136 
Moscow Institute of the Friends 

founded by NovikoflF, 30 
Moscow monarchy, consolidating 

the, 16 
Moscow princes, unlimited authority 

of the, 16 
Moscow stage, the, 200-211 
Moscow Theological Academy, 23 
Moscow tsars, authority of the, 268 
Murillo, Bartolome, mentioned, 90 
"Muse of Vengeance and of Sad- 
ness, A," 174, 175 
Muslin education, 294 
"MusHn Girls," 294 
Mystery plays, 191 

Nadezhdin, poet, 287 
Nadson, poet, 304 
Napoleon I. in Russia, 126 

horrors of the retreat of, from 
Moscow, 122 
Napoleon III., coup d'etat of, 96 
Napoleonic wars, effect of the, on 
Russian soldiers, 34 



'7; 

the 
of 



Nar)'ezhnyi, historical novelist, 64 
Nation's life, the accidental and 

temporary in the historical 

development of, 297 
Natural History of Selhorne (White), 

'77 
Naturalism and realism in France, 

222 
Naturalism and realism, sound, 288 
Nature, forces of, personified in 

heroes, 9 
Humboldt's poetical conception of, 

knowledge of "unholy," 
severely condemned by 
Church, 17 
mythological representations 

forces of, 10 
return to, 119 
the highest poetry of, 299 
the law of, 144 

NaumofF, folk-novelist, 248 

Nefedoff, folk-novelist, 249 

Nekrasoff, Nicholas, poet, sketch of 
his life and works, 170-177; 
editor of The Contemporary, 
112; birth and ancestry of, 170; 
his black misery, 171; makes 
acquaintance with the lowest 
classes of St. Petersburg, 171; 
death of, 171; his love of the 
peasant masses, 172; his inner 
force, 174; his pessimism, 174; 
his struggle against serfdom, 
174; his best poem, 175; his 
poems to the exiles in Siberia 
and the Russian women, 175; 
mentioned, 224, 226, 235, 298 

Neptune, the Sea-God, 9 

Nestor's Annals, 14 

NetchaefF groups, the trial of, 135 

"Neutral tint" types of real life, 233 

Newspaper publishing, diflSculties 
of, in Russia, 263, 264 

Newton, Sir Isaac, mentioned, 25 



INDEX 333 

Nicholas I., becomes emperor, 35; 
hangs some and exiles others of 
the Decembrists, 35 
Nicholas the Villager, 8 
Nihilism and Terrorism compared, 

102 
Nihilist movement of 1858-64, 228 
Nihilist, the, in Russian society, 102 
Nihilists, in art, 296 

true, 281 
Nikirich, Dobrynia, Knight, 8 
Nikitin, Russian poet, 182 
Nikon, Patriarch, ambition of, 19 
Nineteenth century, first years of, in 

Russia, 31-34 
Nobles, servility of the, 28 
NokikofF, first Russian philosopher, 

26 
Nonconformist writings, 19 
Nonconformists, cruel persecution 

of, 18, 19 
Northern Caucasia, spoken language 

of, 6 
Northern Russia, spoken language 

of, 6 
Novgorod, annals of, 14 
Novgorod republic, victories of the, 14 
NovikofF, an apostle of renovation, 
28; his capacities for business 
and organizing, 28; starts a suc- 
cessful printing office in Mos- 
cow, 28; his influence upon 
educated society, 29; organises 
relief for starving peasants, 29; 
accused of political conspiracy, 
29; condemned to death, 29; 
imprisoned in fortress of Schiis- 
selberg, 29; released by Paul I., 
29; founds the Moscow Insti- 
tute of Friends, 30 
Novodvorskiy, novelist, 304 

OblofFdom, laziness of mind and 
heart, 159; not a racial disease, 
161 



334 INDEX 

Odoevskiy, Prince Alexander, poet, 
62 

Odyssey^ the, mentioned, 33 

Oertel, prominent novelist, 300; 
sketch of, 300-302 

OgaiyofF, poet, 275 

Old Testament, books of, wide cir- 
culation of, in Russia, 17 

Olonets, province of, bards of, 8 

Orenburg, Southern Urals, 176 

Organ-grinders, miserable life of, in 
St. Petersburg, 224 

Osmanlis, rule of the, over Servia 
and Bulgaria, 15 

Ostrovskiy, Russian playwright and 
actor, sketch of, 202; description 
of his plays, 203; extracts from 
his drama of The Thunderstorm^ 
205-210; his prolific work, 211; 
mentioned, 223, 224, 229 

Overtaxation of peasants, 284 

Ovid, mentioned, 24 

OzerofF, translator of plays, 193 

Paganism, return to, 17 

Painters, Russian Society of, 223 

Palm, A. I., dramatic writer, 217 

PanaefF, Ivan, Russian novelist, 178 

Paris, occupation of, by Russian 
armies, 34 

Parliamentary commissions in Eng- 
land, 267 

Patriarchal family, principles of the, 
267 

Peasant character and life, 225 

Peasant choir, music of the, 14 

Peasant proprietorship of land, 246 

Peasant woman, the, apotheosis of 
the Russian, 175 

Peasants, revolt of, 18 

Peasantry, Russian, 225 

Permians of the Urals, 235, 236 

Persian language, 4 

PesariflF, Russian critic, 104 

Pestalozzi, reforms of, 121 



Pestel, mentioned, 35 

Peter I., violent reforms of, 21 ; his- 
torical significance of his re- 
forms, 21; realizes importance 
of literature, 21; introduces 
European learning to his coun- 
trymen, 21; establishes a new 
alphabet, 22; little interest in 
literature, 22; his love of the 
drama, 192 

Peter III., coup d'etat of Catherine II. 
against, 26 

Petropavlovskiy, a poet of village 
life, 248 

Philistine family happiness, 133 

Philosophical Nihilist, a, 129 

Philosophical thought, main currents 
of, 266 

Philosophy of war, 123 

PisarefF, literary critic, sketch of, 
118,292,298,303 

Pisemskiy, A. Th., folk-novelist, 216, 
228 

Plescheefe, A., Russian poet, 174; 
arrested with the "Petrashev- 
skiy circles," 183; imprisoned, 

Poetical beauty of Russian sagas, 1 1 
Poetical love, higher enthusiasms of, 

160 
Poet, Russian, intellectual horizon 

of, 45 

Poets, the minor, of Russia, 62-64 

Poland, Alexander I. grants consti- 
tution to, 34 
uprising of, in 1863, 274 

Polar Star, The, Herzen's review, 273 

Poles invade Russia and capture 
Moscow, 18 

Poles, old literature of, 4 

Polevoy, P., historical writer, 295 

Polevoy, poet, 287 

Polezhaeff, poet, 62, 63 

Polish landlords, exactions of, 72 

Polish language, 4 



Political literature, 263-281 
abroad, 270-278 
in Russia, restrictions imposed on, 

282 
with art, mixture of, 243 
Political and moral education, school 

of, 292 
Political parties, development of, 266 
Political thought, channels for, 265 

first manifestation of, in Russia, 28 
Polonskiy, Russian poet, 184 
Polotskiy, Simeon, a mystery play- 
writer, 191 
Polovtsi, raid on the, II 
Poltava, Charles XII., of Sweden, 

defeated at, 36 
Pomyalovskiy, folk-novelist, 233 ; his 

sketches from the life of clerical 

schools, 233 
Pope, an Eastern, 19 
Popular song, development of the 

Russian, 23 
Popularism, ludicrousness of, 305 
"PopuHst" element in the Russian 

novel, 304 
Populists, the, 275 
Potapenko, novelist, 307 
Potyekhin, A. A., comedy writer and 

folk-novehst, 216, 228, 229 
Prairies, village Hfe in the, 241; 

charm of the South Russian, 241 
Press of Russia, muzzling of, 265 
Priest's house in Central Russia, a, 

232 
Printing office established in Mos- 
cow, 19 
Privileged classes, educational 

theories in the interest of, 130 
Procopovitch, priest and writer, 22; 

founds the Greco-Slavonian 

Academy, 22 
Proletarians, massacre of the Paris, 

272 
Protestant rationalism in Novgorod 

and Pskov, 17 



INDEX 335 

Provincial life in a Little-Russian 

village, 301 
Pseudo-classicism, revolt against, 

287 

Pskov, republic of, annals of, 14; 
struggles between the poor and 
rich of, 14 

Psychical disease, specimens of in- 
cipient, 169 

PugatchofF, leads peasant revolt 
against Catherine II., 47; his- 
tory of, by LermontofF, 57 

Punishments, Russian system of, 148 

Pushkin, Alexander, Russian poet, 
sketch of his life and works, 
39-50; his lyrics familiar in 
England, 39; neglected in Rus- 
sia, 39; appreciated in France 
and Germany, 39 ; his beauty 
of form, 40; his individuality 
and vital intensity, 40; his birth 
and ancestry, 41; his perfect 
mastership of the Russian lan- 
guage, 41; his knowledge of 
folklore, 41; describes his shal- 
low life in Evgheniy Onyeghiriy 
41 ; exiled to KishmyofF, 42; 
joins the gypsies, 42; journeys 
to the Crimea and the Cau- 
casus, 42; ordered to return to 
Central Russia, 42; returns to 
St. Petersburg and becomes 
chamberlain to Nicholas I., 42; 
marries, 42; fights a duel and is 
killed, 42; his early productions, 
42, 43; his simplicity in verse, 
43; frees literature from enslave- 
ment, 44; his lyric love poems, 
45; called the Russian Byron, 
45; his Epicureanism, 46; his 
stupendous powers of poetical 
creation, 46; his dramas, 47; his 
comprehension of human affairs, 
47; his most popular work, 47; 
references to, 4, 6, 13, 24, 27, 



33^ INDEX 

3i> 36, 51, 53> 54, 58, 61, 63, 
67, 68, 69, 79, 84, 85, 89, 103, 
112,172,173,176,195,265,287, 
288, 289, 293, 308, 319 

PyeshkofF, A. (Maxim Gorkiy), 250. 
See Gorkiy, Maxim. 

Pypin, A. N., ethnographical writer, 
231 

Racine, Jean Baptiste, mentioned, 61 

Radicals, conceptions of advanced 
Russian, 114 

RadischefF, political writer, 26; re- 
ceives his education in the 
Corps of Pages, 30; his Journey 
from St. Petersburg to Moscow, 
30; transported to Siberia, 30; 
commits suicide, 30 

Ralston, English translator of Rus- 
sian sagas y II 

Rambaud, French historian, 11 

Razin, Stepan, terrific uprising of, 18 

Reaction, real geniuses of, 284; tri- 
umphant, 285 

Realism, how put to service of 
higher aims, 86 
in art, 85 
in France, 86 
in the Russian novel, 85 
of Balzac, 86 
of Russian literature, 46, 222 

Realism and romanticism, mixture 
of, 168 

ReaHsm, Shakesperian, 146 

Realist, the thoughtful, 303, 305 

Realistic school introduced into Rus- 
sia by Pushkin, 58 

Religious deception, 140 

Religious propagandists, 248 

Renaissance, movement of, did not 
reach Russia, 17 

RepubHcan federalism of old Russia, 
return to, 35 

Rich classes, lust of, for wealth and 
luxury, 144 



Rigourism condemned, 305 
Romantic school, influence of the, 72 

French novelists of the, 64 
Romantic sentimentalism, 238 
Romanticism, German, 48 

unbridled, 86 
Romanticism and pseudo-classical- 
ism contend for possession of 
the Russian stage, 195; triumph 
of romanticism, 195 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, mentioned, 

119, 121, 130, 148 
Royal power, uninterrupted trans- 
mission of, 269 
Rurik, house of, 14 
Russia, centres of development in, 14 
exploration of, 225, 230-232 
her firm hold of the Black Sea, 27 
begins to play a serious part in 

European affairs, 27 
independent republics of, 15 
invasion of, by Turks, 15 
main cities of South and Middle, 

laid waste by Mongols, 15 
unity of the spoken language of, 

Russian administration, rottenness 

of, 283 
Russian annals, high literary value 

of, 15 
Russian Art, different currents in, 300 
Russian Church, split in the, 19-21 
Russian diplomatists in Austria, 122 
Russian drama, the, 191-217 
Russian dramatists, clumsy produc- 
tions of, 48 
Russian epic heroes. Eastern origin 

of, 9 . 
Russian epics, mythological features 

of heroes of, 10 
Russian folk-lore, 10 
Russian functionaries, venal nature 

of, 283 
Russian Geographical Society, 8 
Russian Intellectuals, 304, 307; 



moral bankruptcy of, 310 

Russian language, 3-36; richness of, 
3; its pliability for translation, 
3; musical character of the, 4; 
many foreign words adopted 
in, 4 ; remarkable purity of, 
5; grammatical forms of, 5; 
roots of unchanged, 5; beauty of 
structure of, 5; remarkably free 
from patois y 6; unity of the 
spoken, 13; foundation of the 
grammar of, 24; dictionary of, 
compiled by Academy of Sci- 
ences, 26; melodiousness of, 53 

Russian literature, a new era in, 283 

Russian novel, change in the, 303 

Russian philosophical language, 31 

Russian sagas, 10 

Russian society, influence of 
Tchemyshevskiy's novels upon, 
281 
intellectual portion of, 314 

Russian theatre in the first years of 
the nineteenth century, 194, 195 

Russian verse, old, 22 

Russian versification, rhythmical 
form of, 13 

Russian women, higher education of, 

303 
Russian youth, development of, 293 
Russians, traditions, tales, and folk- 
songs of, 7 
Rustem of Persia, legends of, 8 
Ryepin's picture of Tolstoy behind 

the plough, 137 
RyeshetnikofF, folk-novelist, 234; 
description of his novels, 236- 
240; literary defects of his works, 

RyleefF, literary representative of the 
Decembrists, 35, 36; his ballads 
circulate in Russia in manu- 
script, 36; powerful poetical 
gift of, 36 



INDEX 



337 

Sadko, personification of naviga- 
tion, 9 
St. George, 9 
St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, 

23» 24 

St. Petersburg winter season, attrac- 
tions of, 46 

Saint-Simonism, 271 

SaltikofF (nom-de- plume Schedrin), 
satirist, 282 

Sand, George, mentioned, 229 

Satire, a favourite means of express- 
ing political thought, 282 

Satire, writers of, 282-285 

Saying about Igor's Raid, extracts 
from, 12 

Scandinavo-Saxon language, 4 

Scheller {nom-de-plume A. Mik- 
hailofF), novelist, 304 

Scherbatofi^, Prince, collector of 
annals and folk-lore, writes a 
history of Russia, 28 

Scherbina, N., anthological poet, 184 

Schiller, Johann Christoph, refer- 
ences to, 4, ^2y 40, 5l> 56, 103, 
185, 276, 288 

Schopenhauer, Arthur, mentioned, 
54, 134, 135,255 

Scott, Sir Walter, mentioned, 61, 195 

Sebastopol, Tolstoy's sketches of 
siege of, 112, 113 

Secret societies begin to be formed in 
Russia, 34 

Self-love, rational, 142 

Serbian language, 4 

Serfdom, abolition of, 224 
atrocities of, 94 
energetic protest against, 288 
evils of, 222 
growth of, 269 
horrors of, 28, 224, 230 
introduced into Moscow, 16 
introduction of, into Russia, 18 
literary movement against, 84 

Serfs, general feeling in favour of, 226 



338 

Serfs of the Church, 19 

Serfs sold like slaves, 79 

Servia falls under the rule of the 

Osmanlis, 15 
Shahovskoy, Prince, a writer for the 

Russian stage, 195 
Shakespeare, William, references to, 

4, 47» 5i» 52, 126, 195, 201 «., 

215, 288 
Shakespearian fatalism, 238 
Shapir, Olga, novelist, 304 
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, references to, 

4, 5i> 53» 172, 186 
Shenshin, A. {nom-de-plume A. Fet), 

Russian poet, 185 
Shevchenko, poet, 63 
Shevtchenko, Little-Russian poet, 

224 
Short story, the, and its v^ays of 

dealing with human life, 316 
Siberia, spoken language of, 6 
Siberian forests, life in the depths of, 

222 
Skabitchevskiy, critic and historian, 

172,295 
Slavery, abolition of modern, 146 
Slavonian family of languages, 4 
Slavonian mythology, old, 9 
Slavonic archaisms, 25 
Slavonic mythology, early, 10 
Slavophiles, 266-270; fanatics of 

absolute rule, 268, 272 
Slum-life, pictures of, 168 
Smirnoff, Madame O. A. {nee Ros- 

sett), pietist, Gogol falls under 

her influence, 83 
Smimova, Sophie, novelist, 304 
Smith, Adam, mentioned, 277 
Smolensk, captured by Poles, 18 
Social evils, the main cause of, 144 
Social ideas, unsettled condition of. 

Socialism, economic principles of, 

146 
Socialist revival in France, 224 



INDEX 

Socialistic movement in Russia, 163 
Society, agitated Russian, 281 
Society and Court scandals, 265 
"Society" divorce cases in Russia, 

127 
Society, looseness of habits in Rus- 
sian, 28 
Society of Friends, assist Freemasons 
in spreading moral education, 28 
Society of Friends of Russian litera- 
ture, 296 
Society, Russian educated, 232 
Society, the rebel against, 254 
Solidarity, germs of a realistic phi- 
losophy of, 104 
Solovioff', N., playwright, 217 
SoloviofF, v., philosopher, 270 
Song-collectors, 231 
Song of the NibelungSy II 
Song of Rolandy II 
Songs, burial, 7; antique, 7 
South Russian annals, 14 
South Slavonian language, high de- 
gree of perfection of, 5; remark- 
able beauty of, 5 
South Slavonians, folk-songs of, 4 
mixture of, with Turkish and 
Polish blood in Little-Russia, 68 
Southeastern Steppes, Tartar en- 
campments in the, 16 
Southern Russia, spoken language 

of, 6 
Spencer, Herbert, mentioned, 265 

deep sensation of, in Russia, 294 
Stanukovitch, novelist, 304 
StasofF, V. v., his theory of epic 
songs of Slavonic mythology, 9 
State religions in the interest of the 

ruling classes, 142 
Stepniak, political writer, 278 
Sterne, Laurence, mentioned, 30 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, mentioned, 

224, 226 
Sukhovo-Kobylin, playwright, 215, 
216 



INDEX 



339 



Sumarokoff, historian, the Russian 
Racine, 25; wrote dramas and 
contributed to the development 
of the Russian theatre, 25; helps 
to develop the Russian drama, 

193 
Suzdal, Land of, 14 
Swaggerers, collection of, 178 

Tales, Russian, 7 

Tartars, raids of, into Russia, 16 

Tasso, Torquato, mentioned, 61 

TatischetF, historian, superintendent 
of mines in the Urals, 23; wrote 
a number of political works, 23; 
collects and systemadses the 
Annals, 23 

Tchaykovsky, musician, music of, 
13; composes an opera from 
Pushkin's Evghemy Onyeghiitf 
47; plot of the opera, 48-50 

TchehofF, Anton, dramatic writer, 
217 

Tchehoff (pseudonym Tcheonte), 
novelist, sketch of, 308-317 

Tchemyshevskiy, Nicolai, political 
writer, 279; his birth and ances- 
try, 279; contributes to The 
Contemporary, 279; arrested and 
confined, 280; his influence on 
Russian Society, 281; exiled to 
Siberia, 281; returns to Russia 
and settles in Astrakhan, 281; 
his death, 281; referred to, 290, 
291, 293, 296, 297, 298, 314 

Tchemyshofe, I. E., actor and play- 
wright, 217 

Tennyson, Sir Alfred, mentioned, 
173, 174, 186 

Terrorism and Nihilism compared, 
102 

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 
mentioned, 178 

Thought, advanced European, 267 

Tkretiaovskiy, son of a priest, studies 



at Moscow, 22; travels to Am- 
sterdam and Paris, 22; studies at 
the Paris University, 22; his 
services to Russian poetry, 22 

Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in 
America, censored in Russia, 97 

Tolstoy, Count Alexei Konstantino- 
vitch, poet, historical novelist, 
and playwright, 185, 214, 215; 
becomes Head of the Imperial 
Hunt, 215 

Tolstoy, LyofF Nicolaievich, sketch 
of his life and works, 1 10-148; 
his contributions to The Contem- 
porary, no; birth and ancestry 
of. III; loses his father and 
mother when young, in; edu- 
cated by relatives, in; enters 
military service in the Caucasus, 
112; his life during and after the 
Crimean War, 112-115; takes 
part in the siege of Silistria and 
the battle of Balaklava, 112; 
besieged in Sebastopol, 112; 
goes to St. Petersburg, 113; be- 
comes acquainted with Turgue- 
nefF, 113; co-edits The Bell, 113; 
in search of an ideal, 115-118; 
his artistic power, 117; his 
descriptive talent, 117; his small 
stories, 118-121; his educational 
work, 120-121; his marriage, 
121; family traditions, 122; 
sketch of his fFar and Peace, 
125; of his Anna Karenina, 126, 
127; his honest artistic genius, 
128; his religious crisis, 129-138; 
his views on property and labor, 
130; his dislike of the Russian 
Government, 131; his thoughts 
on suicide, 134; his love of the 
peasant masses, 134; his idea of 
earning his own living, 135; 
reforms his life, 137; his plain 
food, 137; philosophical reasons 



340 

for his conduct, 137; his inter- 
pretation of the Christian teach- 
ing, 138-142; his influence, 148; 
references to, 4, 6, 35, 58, 151, 
152, 169, 201, 202, 223, 228, 229, 
250, 278, 281, 296, 297, 298, 300, 

308,319 
Tolstoy, Nicholas, dies of consump- 
tion, 120 
Tolstoya, Countess A. A., 121 
Tolstoyism, 305 

Tramps and thieves, idyll of, 303 
Tramps and outcasts of Russian 

large cities, 242 
Tramps, Gorkiy's species of, 255 
Tramps of Southern Russia, 252 
Transbaikalian folk-lore, 10 
Tsar, absolute power of the, 267 
Tsar's authority, divine origin of, 18 
Turanian language, 5 
Turgueneff, Nicholas, political writer, 
277; memberof the Decembrists, 

Turgueneff, Ivan Sergeyevich, last 
message of, to Russian writers, 
3; sketch of his life and works, 
89-109; the greatest novel writer 
of his century, 89; his high sense 
of the beautiful, 89; his novels a 
succession of scenes, 91 ; the 
qualities of a pessimist and lover 
of mankind combined in him, 
93; extract from his Correspond- 
encey 95, 96; his pessimism, 96; 
threatened with being sent to 
Siberia, 96; a sketch of his 
Rudin, 97, 98; extracts from, 
98, 99; his most artistic work, A 
Nobleman's Retreat, lOO; his 
life-picture of a Russian girl, 
100; extracts from his Fathers 
and Sons, and Hamlet and Don 
Quixote, 105, 106; his attitude 
towards Bazaroff, 106, 107; 
wreck of his hopes in reform 



INDEX 



movement, 107; his death in 
Paris, 109; references to, 4, 6, 
31 > 39> 46, 5o» 52, 58, 84, 85, 
110,118,151,152, 157,169,171, 
i75» ^77y i79> 180, 201, 202, 212, 
215, 223, 225, 226, 228, 239, 247, 
252, 253, 258, 265, 267, 269, 272, 
274, 275, 281, 291, 293, 295, 300, 

302, 303* 304, 308, 314, 315 
Turkish War of 1877, 124 
Turks, tales from the, 7 
Tyutcheff, Th., Russian poet, 183 

Uhland, Ludwig, mentioned, 33 
Ultramontanes, Orthodox, 270 
Ultra-reaHstic school of Russian folk- 
novelists, 234 
Universal religion, elements of a, 144, 

Universal understanding, criterion 
of, 298 

Universal welfare, a desire for, 141 

Upper classes, superstitions of the, 
146 

Ural-Altayan language, 4 

Uspensky, Gleb, folk-novelist, artis- 
tic descriptions of, 222; his 
ethnographic sketches, 243; his 
views on ownership of land, 246 

Varingiar, the Scandinavian, 32 
Vaudeville on the Russian stage, 

195 
Venevitinoff, poet, 62, 287 
Vengeance, question of, 128 
Vengueroff, S., gifted Russian critic, 

104, 172; author of biographical 

dictionary of Russian authors, 

172 
Vereschagin, Vasili, Russian painter, 

124 
Versification, forms of, 173 

laws of rhythmical, 23 
Verstovskiy's Askold's Grave (opera), 

13 



I 



INDEX 



Village-community, future of the, 222 

Village communities, idyllic illusions 
about, 245; drawbacks of, 247 

Village life, foundations of, 244 
dark sides of, 224 

Village life and humour, 69 

Village people, typical, 222 

Virgil, mentioned, 24 

Vladimir, the Fair Sun, KiefF Prince, 
table of, 8 

Voinarsoky, Russian patriot, exiled 
to Siberia, 36 

Volhynian annals, 14 

Volkhonskaya, Princess, Tolstoy's 
mother, ill 

Voltaire, Francois, sarcasm of, 4; 
mentioned, 193 

Vorontsova-Dashkova, Princess, aids 
Catherine II. in her coup-J'etat, 
26; nominated President of the 
Academy of Sciences, 26; assists 
in compiling a Russian diction- 
ary, 26 

Vovtchok, Marko, folk-novelist, 226 

Vvedenskiy, prose translator, 187 

Wagner's operas, librettos of, 296 
War correspondents, 124 
Weinberg, P., translator of poems, 1 86 
Welfare of man, the greatest, 141 
West Siberian villages, life in, 248 
Western civilization, Russia looked 

to, for inspiration, 119 
Western Europe, languages of, 3 
mediaeval city-republics of, 15 
struggles for freedom in, 97, 272 
Russia's great conflict vs^ith, 122 
influence of, on Russian art, 305 
Western influences, struggle against 

intrusion of, in Russia, 16 
Westerners, 266, 269, 270 
White-Russian literature, 6 
Wiener, Leo, great knowledge of 
Russian literature, 12 n.; An- 
thology of Russian Literature 



341 

from the Earliest Period to the 
Present Time^ 12 n. 

Wine and women, an inspiration for 
producing poetry, 287 

Wizin, Von (Fonvizin), writer of 
comedies, 26; The Brigadier y 
ly; Nedorosly 27; creator of the 
Russian national drama, 27; his 
realistic tendency, 27; Secretary 
to Count Panin, 27, 194 

WolflF, Christian, natural philoso- 
pher, 23 

Women, energy of Russian, 304 
slavery of, 290 

Women in Russian revolutionary 
movements, 109 

Women, their part in the develop- 
ment of Russia, 33 

Women's rights, fighters for, 304 

Wordsworth, William, mentioned, 
44, 186 

Yaroslavni, lamentations of, 12 
Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy's estate, 

III, 113, 116, 130 
YazykofF, poet, 62 
Young men, reckless heartlessness 

of, 310 
Young Russia, 136 

revival of, loi 
Yushkova, P. I., Tolstoy's aunt, iii 

Zabyelin, historian, 268 
Zagoskin, historical novelist, 64 
Zasodimskiy, folk-novelist, 248 
Zasulitch, Vera, trial of, 135 
Zemstvo Statisticians, 231 
Zhukovskiy, romantic poet, 32; 
translates works of European 
poets and the classics, 33; his 
ultraromanticism, 33; his ap- 
peal to human nature, 33 
Zlatovratskiy, folk-novelist, 246 
Zola, Emile, realism in first writings 
of, 85; mentioned, 222, 238, 314 



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